


The Loners

by Mademoiselle_A



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Bromance, But this is NOT a romance story, Covid19 inspiration, Discrimination, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Platonic Soulmates, Politics, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Romantic Soulmates, Slavery, Team everyone!, Terrorism, team neutral
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:42:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26074354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mademoiselle_A/pseuds/Mademoiselle_A
Summary: Not having a soulmate - unlike three-quarters of the population - had always made Peter Parker's life complicated and a little miserable.And he would soon realize that doing Tony Stark a favor wasn't going to make it any easier.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark
Comments: 15
Kudos: 85





	1. Chapter 1

.

**_August 16, 2016_ **

**_._ **

There was a dead body a few feet away from Tony.

There were several dead bodies around him, actually. But for a split second, Tony's gaze lingered oddly on one in particular.

It was the body of a young man in his thirties, wearing round glasses and a green plaid shirt. The kind of young man with no special features that didn't really catch the eye in a crowd. The kind of young man that Tony would have passed on the street without thinking twice about it. But this one was dead, a bullet buried in his left temple, and was lying just a few feet away from Tony.

The billionaire was no stranger to Death and what She left behind. Being a superhero wasn't all about saving lives and smiling at admirers. He saw dead people too. Often. Too often.

But to see so many of them in the middle of a family festival was not normal.

The sound of another explosion resounded somewhere behind him, making the earth shake and his ears whistle. Dust and screams rose in the air, and Tony was once again caught in a whirlwind of panic.

Many men and women were running around trying to escape the carnage. One of them, a schoolboy in uniform, stumbled over the body of the young man with the round glasses. The schoolboy didn't fall. Nor did he stop to check whether the person on the ground was dead or not. He simply continued his escape, without even noticing Iron Man near him.

Another round of gunfire thundered in the festival. The screams increased and people ran faster to take cover. Tony didn't join their frantic race and looked around.

Since the festival was held on a busy town street, partygoers had the opportunity to hide in the surrounding shops, but the attackers also had the advantage of being out of reach. And they had planned their moves. The bombs targeted the potential shelters.

"It's Iron Man!"

Tony turned his head to see a young blonde girl pointing at him, crouched behind a van.

Some civilians followed the girl's gaze and their faces lit up when they saw the hero in his suit. They ran to Tony and stayed by his side, as if his mere presence could protect them from bombs and gunfire. It wasn't true. Tony was wearing a metal armor. If another explosion went off under their noses, he'd be the only one to escape more or less unharmed.

"FRIDAY, is there a shelter near here?" Tony asked his AI.

A blue beam came out of his helmet and scanned the surrounding area. Another explosion sounded somewhere behind them, adding dust to the air. A woman with a frightened look clung to the billionaire's arm, and the other civilians instinctively drew closer to the hero.

"FRIDAY," urged Tony.

 _" There is a building that doesn't appear to have been damaged by the explosions, 13 meters to your right, sir. No explosive devices are detected inside,"_ replied the AI. _"There is an entrance on the side of the building."_

"Okay, let's go, everyone!" said Tony as he headed towards said building without waiting for an answer.

He quickly found the building that FRIDAY had just indicated to him. It was made of grey stones, with no broken windows or smashed doors, unlike the other buildings on the street. The name "Stan's Bakery" was inscribed above a glass pane that displayed all kinds of pastries. Normally, the sight of cakes and croissants might have caught Tony's attention, but he barely looked at them and forced the bakery handle to open the door.

The inside was empty and silent. The lights were off and the air inside the bakery was eerily still, even when Tony pushed the door open and stepped inside. Maybe the owner had run away after closing. Or he was lucky enough not to have come to work that day.

The civilians who had followed Tony rushed into the bakery. Then, they looked up at him, waiting for his orders. Or comforting words, perhaps. _It's going to be all right, we've got it under control, you're safe._ That's what Tony was supposed to say, normally. But these words sounded more hollow than usual today.

 _"Two shooters have been spotted on the third floor of the bank."_ Steve's voice popped into Tony's ear. _"Another shooter is in the main building. Tony, Sam, what's your 20? "_

Tony knew that there was also a shooter at the end of the street, in charge of killing anyone who tried to escape through the festival entrance. Since Rhodey was missing, and Sam and Tony were the only ones who could fly in their suits, Steve probably wanted the two of them to try and eliminate their opponents from above.

"I'm on the ground," Tony told Steve through their comm-link. "There's also a shooter at the entrance. I'll take care of him and the one in the main building."

 _"I'll take care of the other two!_ " replied Sam's voice, muffled by the wind. He seemed already on his way to his new task.

 _"Clint, Nat,"_ called Steve.

 _"The south of the festival is safe,"_ Clint reported back, _"The shooters are under control."_

Clint and Natasha had already finished their work and Sam was on the same track. If Tony could get it over with as soon as possible too, that would be great. He'd seen enough deaths for today.

He turned around to walk out of the bakery, but one of the civilians who had followed him here - a young boy with freckles on his nose - asked in a slightly frantic voice, "Are you really leaving?"

Tony faced the people in the bakery again. The same question was written on everyone's face. They looked scared that the Avenger might abandon them.

"Someone has to go and beat the big bad guys!" he said, spreading his arms before moving away again.

"No, wait!" cried one of the women beside him.

She grabbed his left arm to prevent him from escaping and Tony looked up at her.

It was the same woman who had desperately grabbed his arm earlier, before entering the bakery.

The woman must have been in her mid-forties. Thick, curly, tousled hair framed her round face and her flowery dress was torn and burned in places. A deep cut ran down her left cheek, but the wound seemed to be the least of her concerns.

Realizing that she was holding the genie's left arm, the woman blushed and hurriedly withdrew her hand. Without Tony's armor, she would have touched his Envèl. Under other circumstances, Tony would have been embarrassed by the woman's gesture, but he knew full well that she had not done it on purpose.

She opened her mouth, probably intending to apologize, but Tony cut her off, "What's your name?"

The woman hesitated, looking once again at Tony's left arm, as if she still wanted to apologize. She nevertheless abstained and instead answered the hero's question:

"Carmen."

Tony nodded before placing a firm hand on Carmen's right shoulder. "I have a date at 5" he said out of the blue.

The woman's face displayed a genuinely confused look, probably not understanding where Tony was going with this statement. The hero enlightened her, "I intend to go beat the crap out of the assholes who decided to shoot at you, so fast that I'll be on time for my date. These men have killed enough people today. I want to stop this slaughter as soon as possible."

Carmen swallowed with difficulty but nodded with resignation. 

"And once I'm done with the shooters, I'm going to come back and take you back to your families," Tony continued. "Do you have kids? You must have kids. You have this 'I have kids' kind of face." 

Carmen smiled sadly, "I have a son."

"Well, don't worry, you're going to see your beloved little boy again," said Tony. "And he's going to give you one of his awful drawings he made at school and that you'll throw in the trash when his back is turned."

"He's 19"

"Whatever. Just stay here, and I'll be back in a few minutes. I promise."

For a long time, only the sound of screams and gunshots from outside answered Tony. Then, Carmen nodded, not daring to look at him. She was afraid. It was understandable. But other civilians that the hero hadn't been able to fit into a bakery were probably even more afraid than she was right now.

Tony looked at the other people in the shop. There were about ten of them altogether. They all looked as worried as Carmen, but no one else tried to stop him again. Tony took this as a good sign and didn't wait another minute to slip away.

He walked out into the chaos outside again. Bodies were lying on the ground among garlands and empty beer bottles. An old man with a long white beard walked past Tony, appearing to be struggling to move his aged body forward. The hero didn't even have time to think about helping him when a bullet went into the old man's back. The old man's eyes widened, and his body fell heavily on the ground. Tony swore slightly and activated the propulsors of his gauntlets and boots to take off into the air.

The shooter at the entrance of the festival was surprisingly easy to locate. He was standing on the third floor of a studio apartment with a rifle in his hands. His arms and shaved head were covered with tattoos, and a long metal piercing went through his nose. His entire appearance screamed "danger". There was absolutely nothing discreet about him.

To Tony's surprise, when the shooter noticed him in the sky, he did not attack the Avenger. He simply lowered his weapon and raised both arms in the air, surrendering without protest.

Tony hesitated. He was expecting a confrontation a little more exciting than that, and the SWAT team still hadn't arrived. A little more and Tony would have thought the police were taking a vacation. The first explosion had occurred quite some time ago.

The Avengers had been a few blocks away from the festival when the killings started. They were tailing a group of agents suspected of having ties to Hydra. Their mission had changed quickly, however, when the ground shook under their feet and the first screams had risen in the nearby streets.

Hydra was going to be another day's problem.

"Congratulations, you've just earned a life in prison," Tony announced as he grabbed the man's collar.

The shooter's eyes widened when Tony passed his body over the open window and found himself hanging in the air. The terrorist desperately clung to the metal arm of Tony's armor, looking at the void under him with fright.

"P-Please," stuttered the tattooed man.

"Please? You were shooting families in the middle of a festival two minutes ago."

The man looked at Tony in disgust, "They were Loners,"

Tony didn't think twice about it and let the man go.

Eyes bulging in terror, the shooter screamed in a high-pitched cry as his body plummeted through the air. Tony smirked to himself. He had half a mind to ask FRIDAY to film the spectacle.

But the last time he did something like that, Rhodey didn't find it very funny. 

Tony sighed and waited until the shooter's body was a few feet from the ground before rushing towards him. He caught his enemy a mere second before the man crashed to the ground. Although more than one person would have wished the tattooed man dead, Tony was a member of the Avengers. Better to avoid bad publicity.

The police still weren't there, however, and it would have been the perfect time to throw the shooter in their arms. Not even the sirens could be heard. Tony couldn't afford to watch over the tattooed man. He had another murderer to catch.

"I'm bringing you a present," said Tony over the comms when he saw Natasha in the distance, at the other end of the festival.

He flew to his teammate, the shooter still screaming and clinging to him.

Two men and a woman were kneeling in front of Natasha, their hands tied behind their backs, staring at the ground. One of the two men had a split lip, the woman was bleeding profusely from her forehead, and the third culprit had a completely swollen face. Clint and Natasha had had a little more fun with their enemies than Tony.

When he reached Natasha, Tony unceremoniously let go of his charge. The tattooed shooter rolled dangerously on the ground, grunting in pain, but Tony didn't check the damage and headed for the central building.

The second terrorist was a little harder to find. Tony flew around the building, but unlike his partner, the man had hidden better.

Unfortunately, it was when a civilian fell to the ground with a bullet in his thigh that Tony was able to guess the angle of the shot and the origin of the position. He immediately flew in that direction and finally found a man with long dark hair and a long-range rifle.

Once again, no bullets bounced off Iron Man's armor when Tony faced his enemy. The second shooter simply put the rifle on the ground and raised his hands in the air, admitting defeat without a word.

Tony grew irritated at the sight. Was this their plan? 'Kill as many civilians as possible, but once you're caught, give up your weapons and you won't be harmed?' The billionaire really wanted to show them how this plan could be foiled. Tony could very well attack the shooter with his repulsor "inadvertently". It wasn't going to kill him. It was only going to hurt him a _little bit_.

Tony controlled these cynical thoughts and asked instead:

"Why did you stop shooting?"

The shooter fixed his pupils on him. His gaze seemed firmer and more convinced than the other tattooed shooter. He also seemed smarter. And smart enemies were often the most dangerous in their conviction.

"We don't kill our own," answered the dark-haired man in a calm voice.

"Oh, only the Loners, how admirable," said Tony in a sarcastic voice. "Should I thank you?"

"You will thank us when you realize that the planet would be better off without the Soulless. They will soon contaminate us all."

The shooter was talking like he could see further than Tony. Like today's killings made sense. Like he was a wise man and the rest of the world was slow to see reason. Tony looked at the man for a long time, sincerely trying to understand the hatred that animated such people.

The hero then thought of the dead in the street, the chaos that permeated the air, and all those frightened faces that Tony had been forced to ignore in order to arrest the perpetrators of this tragedy. Another bomb exploded somewhere in the festival, proof that the hell below hadn't even stopped yet despite the arrests of the shooters. It would be a miracle if the Avengers saved a third of the innocent people today. 

Tony raised his right arm and opened his gauntlet towards the shooter. Raw energy piled up at the end of his palm, and this time, his enemy's eyes widened.

"For killing so many innocent people today, the only one without a soul is you," said the hero.

And with those words, Tony expelled the energy towards the shooter.

* * *

When Tony returned to the ground, the bakery was destroyed.

Half of the front facade was in ruins, the glass had disappeared, and various pastries eerily decorated the floor with other debris.

Smoke was still coming out of the bakery. Some of the furniture was still burning. Tony retracted his helmet and went inside with a heavy heart.

Two motionless bodies were at the foot of the counter on the right, and another body was lying on the left. Tony turned around and his eyes landed on a fourth half-burned body in a corner of the bakery. The hero closed his eyes as he recognized the dead woman's flowery dress.

_I'm sorry, Carmen._

Tony's morale dulled and a burning remorse quietly ate away at him.

And it was only then that he heard the police sirens.

* * *

.

**_August 17, 2016_ **

**_._ **

Natasha hadn't even slipped a leg out of the black SUV in which she was sitting when the first flashes blinded her.

The spy got out of the car and closed the back door, ignoring the journalists at the bottom of the tower steps. She readjusted the jacket of her grey suit and began to climb the stairs leading up to the entrance of the building. The journalists followed her.

Someone asked her a question about her last mission in Holland. She didn't even have time to decide whether she wanted to answer it or not that a series of questions from other journalists came from all sides.

Natasha breathed slowly through her nose. It was Tony who knew how to handle that kind of attention, not her. As a spy, anonymity had always been her best friend. Being in the spotlight like that gave her the feeling of having a bug crawling under her skin.

"Over here, Miss Romanoff," a voice rose above the hubbub.

A tall, bald security guard, with a pointed beard and a wide build, easily walked through the crowd of journalists to approach Natasha. Once at her side, he put a discreet hand on Natasha's back and led her towards the tower doors. The journalists instinctively moved out of their way.

Natasha knew she didn't need protection. The security guard must have known that himself. But she was still quietly grateful for his intervention. She was already going to have to endure the media during the press conference. She didn't need to be harassed ahead of time.

Natasha and the security guard entered the building and the voices of the journalists were muffled as the doors closed behind them.

The inside of the tower was luxurious. The entrance hall was infinitely large and the receptionist - who greeted them from afar from her desk - seemed small in the middle of all this space. Golden ornaments decorated the brown walls, and Natasha found herself walking on a glossy white floor.

On the right side of the hall, just before the opening leading to the main corridor, was installed a machine that Natasha recognized immediately.

"An Envèl detector?" she asked the bald man accompanying her.

"This is the procedure for important events," said the guard.

Natasha didn't add anything. The location of the press conference had been changed at the last minute and the spy had not had time to check the new location thoroughly.

They approached the Envèl detector, and another security guard standing behind a computer near the machine - a blonde woman with gray eyes - smiled broadly as she laid her eyes on the spy.

"Good morning, Miss Romanoff," said the woman with a certain amount of reverence. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Natasha smiled briefly while the blonde guard continued to look at her with admiration.

The seconds stretched out. A little too long. Natasha cleared her throat to get the agent out of her contemplation.

"Uh, yes, of course, p-please put your arm where indicated," stammered the woman as she went back behind the computer screen.

An Envèl detector was a machine in height, composed of a cylindrical opening that allowed someone to slide a forearm into it. They were most often seen in airports or government buildings. Apart from that, only places with a certain reputation dared to own one.

Natasha rolled up the left sleeve of her jacket to uncover the short bracer on her wrist. She inserted her left arm into the opening of the machine and a scarlet light beam went around her Envèl.

A green light flashed above the detector when the examination was completed. Seeing the result, the bald security man accompanying Natasha wished her a good day and slipped away.

"Please state your name, the name of your Bond Partner, and the nature of your Bond," the blonde guard said to Natasha as her colleague walked away.

"Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, Fraternity Bond", answered the spy by removing her arm from the machine.

The guard, with her eyes fixed on the screen in front of her, tapped on her keyboard for a moment to validate the information.

"Of course, no one doubts your identity, Blac- Miss. Romanoff," the woman added after a silence. "But so many Loners try to pass themselves off as Bonders by creating fake Envèls. As if that could change their nature."

The tone was haughty and mocking. Natasha wondered if the security guard knew that the heroine was there to give a conference against discrimination.

"Okay, everything seems perfect," said the guard. "Take the hallway to your left and someone will take you to the conference room. Enjoy your press conference, Miss Romanoff."

Natasha thanked the woman and walked down the hallway indicated.

The man who was supposed to take her to the conference room wasn't far away. An old man was already waiting for her, a beige suit on his back, in one of the corners of the corridor.

And Clint was standing right next to him.

Natasha was a little relieved to see her Bond Partner. Clint had told her that he didn't know if he would be able to attend the press conference. He was helping Steve gather information from a prisoner this morning, and he hadn't known when the interrogation would end. Natasha was glad to see that he had been able to free himself.

The old man next to Clint greeted Natasha with a polite nod and a quiet "Miss Ramanoff". He then waved his hand to the two Avengers, telling them to follow him.

"Ross won't be happy," Clint said, following in the footsteps of the old man.

"And that's why we're acting before he gets wind of this conference," Natasha replied.

At the corner of a corridor, the old man who was accompanying them stopped and showed them an entrance on their right. Inside, Natasha and her Bond Partner were already introduced. The agents at the reception desk must have told the organizers that the spy had arrived.

"I wasn't talking about the conference," said Clint.

Applause rose in the conference room. People were waiting for them. Natasha glanced at her Partner and entered the stage, Clint following her.

The applause continued as they stepped onto the stage. Natasha stood in front of the podium, and Clint positioned himself to her right, a little further back, in silent support.

The applause gradually stopped. Only the clicks of the photos pierced the silence of the room. Microphone and notebook in hand, the reporters waited patiently for the Avenger to speak, and the cameramen already started recording.

Natasha had planned to begin her speech with the usual formalities and thanks. But after careful reflection, she chose to do otherwise.

"I'm bonded to Clint Barton," she said instead.

She didn't look back at the archer, but she could feel his gaze on her back. He must not have expected to be the first note of her speech. But she had seen her friend and had been inspired:

"And like me, 68% of our population is destined to be bonded to someone else. I've always been told that sharing someone else's soul is a blessing. That being a member of the Bonders was an honor to cherish. But lately, I'm ashamed of the actions of some who belong to this category."

Two more pictures were taken of her. Some reporters wrote things down in their notebooks. Natasha didn't pay any attention to them and continued:

"Because the remaining 32% of our population is human. The Loners are human. Even if they don't have a soulmate, they don't deserve to be treated this way. No one deserves to be shot in the middle of a family festival day. Tuesday's events were abominable for many reasons and should open our eyes. It's time for things to change."

Natasha paused, seeking a look sharing her opinion among the crowd. And it was then that she noticed a disturbing detail in her audience.

Her eyes roved the left arms of the journalists. Some had sleeves too long for her to distinguish a bracer, but the others all wore Envèls. They were all Bonders. Even the cameraman with the stained t-shirt in the back on the right. Then, Natasha understood.

The Envèl detector at the entrance was not intended to verify identity theft. Loners were simply not allowed in the building.

In such a place, Natasha's message didn't even make sense.

The little conviction the spy had quickly evaporated, but she tried to continue her speech.

She heard herself speak of justice, tolerance and love of neighbour, but the masks of the journalists stayed solidly in place. There was no nodding in agreement with her words or empathetic faces for the victims of the latest attacks. Natasha's voice echoed through the room, and her message seemed to escape through the open windows. 

At the end of her speech, Natasha felt strangely detached.

And when the journalists all questioned her at the same time and one of them asked her if a Loner was hiding among the Avengers, Natasha ignored the question.


	2. Chapter 2

**August 18, 2016**

.

Sam looked blankly at Thaddeus Ross' hologram, his mind half lost in the ceiling lights. The Secretary of State's voice was filling the room and passing through Sam without him grasping its meaning. Ross's words seemed to resonate in his head, like a distant echo.

The Avengers were all seated around the long table in the conference room of their compound. They had been told this very morning that Ross demanded a meeting within the next hour, so the heroes had been listening to the Secretary of State lecture them for 20 minutes without having eaten breakfast.

Well, they were _supposed_ to be listening to him for 20 minutes.

Tony was staring at Ross with a look of boredom and irritation, seeming to wonder if he could throw something at the hologram to make it stop talking. Clint was playing unabashedly on his cell phone - probably having put his hearing aid on 'mute' - and Natasha was answering 'Of course, Secretary Ross' to Ross's remarks with a hypocrisy she wasn't even trying to hide. Rhodey and Steve were the only ones listening seriously. Sam forced himself to do the same:

_"...and what do I hear? That almost all the Avengers have been out there for hours cleaning up the rubble of a festival. The situation was under control at 4pm. You were still there three hours later."_ said Ross' hologram, standing in front of the room.

By 'under control' Ross meant that the shooters and the bombs had been stopped. For him, that was enough. It was as if he'd never met Steve Rogers.

No one had questioned the captain's order when he told his team to assist the injured and look for survivors. They were heroes. That was their job.

Ross was simply unhappy that the Avengers had again taken initiatives without consulting the Union. But they had been next to the festival during the killings. Even Ross couldn't tell them that they should have gone back to the base and waited for an "ok" before going to save the Loners, at the risk of sounding like a heartless asshole.

And not all the Avengers had signed the Sokovia Accords.

_"And if we come to a decision you don't like?"_ had asked Natasha on the day the Secretary of State presented the Accords and asked them to sign.

_"Then you retire"_

That's what Ross had said.

Before the invasion of Muspelheim.

Before the Dark Week of July.

Before Kang.

Sam never would have wanted these tragedies to happen. People had died because of them. But he had to admit that these events, which had erupted one after the other, had worked in their favour. The government and the police forces had been unable to deal with the disasters without assistance, and they had been forced to resort to the Avengers. Whether they had signed the Sokovia Accords or not, they were still needed.

The recalcitrant Avengers therefore had a temporary agreement with the United Nations, while a consensus was reached. They could operate normally, but they were going to have to face consequences if they went overboard. They also couldn't they act as superheroes outside the country without permission. Sam, Clint, Scott, Steve and Wanda had agreed.

Despite this, Ross was still looking for a legal way to force all the heroes to sign the Accords. He hadn't found one yet.

_"In the event of an emergency, who would have been in the facility?"_ Ross continued, _"Colonel Rhodey would have been the only one to answer the call."_

To that, this time, Tony rolled his eyes, "Because all means of communication suddenly die as soon as we set foot off the base," he said sarcastically. "There's always, you know, telephones."

_"That's not the point -"_

"And it's funny we never hear from you when a hate crime against the Loners happens. One might wonder if their lives are in your priorities every once in a while."

There was a silence. Clint stopped playing on his telephone, seemingly noticing that no more noise was being made around him and looked up at the Secretary of State. He discreetly turned his hearing aid back on (Sam had guessed correctly) and lowered his cell phone. Rhodey and Natasha also waited in a judgmental silence for Ross's reply.

_"What are you implying here, Stark?"_ Ross replied coldly, squinting.

"That you don't care. Sorry, I thought it was clear," replied the genius.

_"Those are dangerous accusations you're making here, Stark. I care about the welfare of the entire population of this country, that's why I'm doing this damn job. You remind me of all those citizens who spend their time complaining blindly. One crack in the street next to their home, and suddenly, the mayor of the town never does his job and spends his time twiddling his thumbs. We get a pile of disasters on our desk every day. All of them tragic, but some more tragic than others. Some that can be handled by superheroes, and some that can be handled by_ normal _police forces. Not all attacks are your responsibility, Avengers."_

"The SWAT team-" started Tony.

_"...was not late,"_ the Secretary of State completed. _"You were lucky to be next door. That's different."_

A sceptical silence surrounded the Avengers. A disaster in the Bonders neighborhood and the police could show up in less than 8 minutes. A bombing in the Loners district and it took almost an hour.

_"One of the Union's next requests actually concerns the Loners."_ announced Ross. _"It's an operation we've been working on for months and we'll need your help to put an end to it. You see, Avengers, we_ do _occasionally care about the fate of the Loners."_

Sam held back a snort. It was only when Tony was criticizing Ross on the subject that the latter was bringing out this famous mission concerning the Loners. What a coincidence.

_"I'll send the details of the mission in the next few weeks, after your mission in Malta,"_ said Ross, putting his right hand in the pocket of his trousers.

And without a goodbye, Ross's hologram disappeared. A heaviness that reigned in the room each time the Secretary of State was present gradually faded away. Sam's shoulders relaxed and he passed a hand behind his neck.

Playing hero was getting harder and harder these days.

"We'll be in our Envelium before training," Natasha announced as she stood up after a moment. "We'll meet you in 30 minutes."

"I have to call Laura," Clint said, standing up as well.

Natasha solemnly nodded and grabbed her Bond Partner's arm to lead him out of the room. "We'll meet you in 2 hours," she corrected.

Sam smiled faintly. Clint could spend a whole day talking with his wife and children. He didn't see them often.

Clint and Natasha disappeared into the hallway. And when the door closed behind them, another tension rose in the room.

Tony was sitting in a chair at the front, closest to where Ross's hologram had been a moment earlier, and Steve was on his left, on the other side of the table. Rhodey and Sam were sitting farther away, towards the exit, and they glanced at each other discreetly as the atmosphere became more bitter. Sam had had the misfortune of being alone with the captain and the billionaire in a room a few days before. The atmosphere had been so heavy, he had almost choked on it. 

Maybe it was time to leave.

Before Sam could decide what would be the best way to flee from this room and leave Tony and Cap to their problems, Tony moved first.

Tony got up from his chair and picked up his cell phone, lying on the table next to Steve. The captain followed Tony's movements with a rigid posture.

"Kubaski would like us to share information about the S-38 program, our collaboration with Fort Bragg," finally said Steve, looking up at Tony.

Tony nodded slowly.

"I can call him after my meeting, this afternoon," answered Tony.

The answer might have seemed trivial to anyone. But the Captain said "us". It was a subtle invitation for him and Tony to share information about the new program to Kubaski together. Tony got the message. But he’d said he would call Kubaski back alone. He was turning down the invitation.

Steve also must have understood Tony's message because he nodded, his jaw a little tight.

Without another word, Tony walked out of the room. Rhodey gave the captain a thin sorry smile before following in his friend's footsteps. The door closed behind them, leaving Steve and Sam alone.

Even before the Accords and Barnes, Steve and Tony had always spent their time arguing over nothing. At times, Sam even had the feeling that when one opened his mouth, the other would contradict him just to annoy him. Steve had told Sam it wasn't true, of course, because it was Steve. But Tony had simply given Sam an enigmatic smile the day he had made the remark.

It was their way of... building their friendship, maybe. Probably. Sam wasn't sure he understood their dynamics.

But now, it wasn't the same anymore.

Because of the Sokovia Accords. Because Tony and Steve had had two different visions. Because Tony and Steve should have listened to each other more, and they were both _stubborn, stubborn, stubborn_...

"I admit, I'm not sure how to do it," Steve said to Sam, running his hand through his hair.

"Just give him time," Sam said.

To be honest, Sam himself was not fiercely against the Sokovia Accords. He didn't like them. He knew it was full of unfairness and unnecessary restrictions. But under different circumstances, he might have complied with Ross's request, in the end. The purpose of the Accords was not inherently wrong.

Sam had nothing against Tony, either. They weren't the best friends in the world, but they had that kind of bond that developed between people who were always counting on each other to stay alive. When you frequently had near-death experiences with the same members of a group for years, there was a good chance of getting attached.

However, it was Steve who had helped Sam through some of the darker moments in his life. It was Steve who had shown him that it was worthwhile to keep moving forward, even though Sam had just lost his Bond Partner. Following the Captain hadn't erased Riley's death, far from it. But the Avengers' life was what had helped Sam get back on track the most. He owed Steve a lot. So, Sam had followed him.

"It'll all work out in the end, you'll see," Sam added.

He didn't know if his friend believed his words or not, for Steve didn't answer and continued to look straight ahead, obviously still concerned about the terrible relationship he had with Tony. Sam put a comforting hand on his right shoulder, "Let's go work out, Cap. And then we'll take a walk outside."

* * *

'Taking a walk outside' wasn't always so easy, when you were called Captain America and you could literally see your face printed on a passer-by's T-shirt on the street. Steve Rogers had a knack for creating an army of hysterical fans in record time.

Steve, however, had always been highly uncomfortable with all this attention, so when the two men went out to town after their training session, the captain was wearing his famous brown leather jacket, a blue cap and sunglasses. Sam was really wondering how people didn't recognize him. Technically, once inside, the captain had to take off his sunglasses, so all that was left was his cap - which still revealed his entire face - to save his identity. And everyone was fooled?

Humans were simple.

"Thank you, Sam," said Steve on his right.

"Hm?" Sam replied, distracted by the message his sister had just texted him on his cell phone.

"The exhibition. I liked it."

Sam took his eyes off his phone and focused them on his friend. He looked relaxed. Mission accomplished.

"No problem," said Sam with a smile.

They were outside, at the foot of the front stairs of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Entertaining Steve wasn't usually too complicated, especially when it came to his passion for art. So, when Sam had remembered that exhibition on traditional Japanese art, he thought it would be a good idea to bring the captain along.

During the visit, Sam had almost fallen asleep listening to endless explanations of works of art that all looked alike, but Steve seemed to have had a good time.

"Do you want to go eat?" Steve asked, putting his sunglasses back on his nose.

Sam nodded, and the two men mingled with passersby on the street, looking for a place that wouldn't draw too much attention to them.

They found a little diner two blocks from the museum. The place was charming with its round wooden tables and rattan chairs. Rising plants decorated the front facade of the restaurant and trees provided shade on the terrace outside.

To keep a low profile, Sam and Steve decided to eat inside, and they were set up near the main window. The waitress who took their order - a young Latina girl in a short black dress and an electric blue Envèl - promised to come back in a few minutes, looking tired. Then, she left for the kitchens without much energy.

"So, how's it going with Carter?" Sam asked his friend when the waitress disappeared behind the kitchen doors.

Sam wasn't sure what was going on between Steve and Sharon. It sounded complicated. The two had kissed during the Barnes fiasco, but they still seemed to be hovering around each other without making anything official.

Steve smiled weakly at his question. He put both his hands on the table and lowered his eyes to them, seemingly immersing himself in pleasant memories, "Sharon found her Bond Partner."

"Really?" Sam said, not expecting that answer.

Sam was surprised to be strangely happy for Sharon. Then, he remembered that although the news was fabulous for the CIA agent, it might not be as fabulous for Steve. Sam watched his friend closely.

Steve was smiling. If Steve was smiling, he wasn't heartbroken. And if he wasn't heartbroken while talking about his Maybe-Girlfriend's Bond Partner, it meant that Sharon and her Partner weren't sharing a Love Bond.

Sam had heard so many stories of Bonders who had had to break up long-term relationships because of the discovery of their new Partner. Those stories were always really sad.

"Oh," Sam exclaimed. "Was that what you were waiting for?"

"What?" Steve asked, looking up at him.

"Carter's Partner. You wanted to see what kind of Bond she'd have before you committed to a relationship?"

Steve didn't answer right away. A young red-headed girl with green eyes and a tall boy with glasses on his nose sat at two tables on their left. They were well dressed and shyly smiling at each other. A first date, perhaps.

The couple caught the captain's attention. Steve's gaze became more distant, as if the sight of the two kids reminded him of Sharon and himself. It was with his eyes still fixed on them that he replied, "If she'd had a Love Bond after we got together, it would've devastated us. All three of us. I wanted to avoid that."

"You could have waited 10 years," Sam said in disbelief.

Normally, Bonders did indeed meet their Partner in early adulthood. But there were exceptions. Rhodey, for example, was still waiting.

Sam also knew that a couple of Bonders who did not share a Love Bond was not very well seen in Steve's days. He suspected that the Captain had been reluctant to enter into a relationship with Sharon because of this.

Steve shrugged his shoulders at Sam's remark and finally took his eyes off the couple next to them, "I don't have to worry about that anymore. Her Bond is platonic."

"Fraternity Bond?" Sam asked.

"Strength Bond."

Sam nodded, not too surprised. Bonders who normally ensured the security of a territory, or who required a certain physical form to exercise their profession, often had Strength Bonds. They were dominant among policemen, firemen and soldiers. They had been a ton at SHIELD, and most superheroes had that type of Bond, including Sam.

Their waitress came back with their orders. She placed a huge hamburger in front of Sam and a plate of vegetables and roast beef in front of Steve. The waitress wished them a small "Bon appétit" and went to take care of the young couple who had just arrived.

"They're already sealed?" Sam asked before attacking his hamburger.

"No, not yet," Steve answered, grasping his fork. "Their Ceremony is next month. You're invited, by the way."

Sam didn't know Sharon very well and had never seen her mysterious Partner. Maybe he had been invited to keep the Captain company.

"Do you already know what color their Envèls will be?" Sam asked as he caught a tomato that was slipping from his burger.

Steve's answer was slow in coming. Sam looked up at his friend. Steve was staring at something behind the air veteran, completely distracted.

Sam turned around and saw their waitress and a man in his mid-40s whispering furiously to each other, near the kitchen doors. They were discreetly glancing in the direction of the two heroes' section, as if they didn't dare to look too much at the subject of their discussion.

Finally, the man - no doubt the manager of the restaurant - seemed to lose his patience. Sam could hear a "Listen to me, miss," but the rest was whispered too low. Apparently, the owner was putting her back in line.

When the manager appeared to finish his tirade, the waitress nodded sharply, her eyes frustrated and much more awake than before.

Then, she took a deep breath and walked towards Sam and Steve with an uncertain step.

Maybe the boss hadn't been fooled by the captain's cap and had asked the girl to serve the superheroes with a little more zest. It was true that smiling wouldn't hurt her.

However, against all expectations, the waitress didn't stop at Steve and Sam's level. Instead, she went to the young couple's table next to them, looking uncomfortable.

The boy and girl looked up at the waitress with a smile on their faces, probably ready to order. But the waitress didn't take out her little notebook.

"I, hm... excuse me, but if you don't mind, we're going to move you to another table."

A confused silence followed the waitress's request. The boy and the girl glanced at each other before looking around. Apart from Steve and Sam, there were two other couples sitting a little further away, and a group of three teenage girls just behind Steve. The other tables were empty.

"Oh, is this table reserved?" the redheaded girl asked, frowning slightly. "We just wanted to sit in the sun, near the window, as we were told that the tables outside were not available either."

Sam looked out the window. There were at least 3 empty tables outside.

The Latina pursed her lips, looking like she didn't know how to get her next words out.

The three teenage girls behind Steve and one of the two couples inside the restaurant - an older man and woman - were also attracted to the conversation and began to observe the scene. The restaurant manager, still standing near the kitchen doors, was examining his employee with a relentless look on his face, arms folded. The pressure seemed to crush the waitress's hesitation as she finally said:

"This section and the terrace are unfortunately reserved for Bonders, so we'll, er, we'll have to move you to the Loners section."

There was a pause during which no one dared to speak.

The girl opened her mouth, visibly confused, but nothing came out. When she glanced again at her companion, his eyes were glued to the table between them. The girl swallowed and grabbed her left arm, as if to hide the lack of Envèl around her wrist. Then, she said in a slightly upset voice. "I was sitting in this section last week. You even served me."

"You... uh, you were with a Bonder, so..." said the waitress.

_It was acceptable._

The waitress blushed, "I'm sorry, it's not m... it's the restaurant policy. I'm sorry."

Another heavy silence fell in the restaurant. All the customers were now staring at the young couple, some with a disapproving look on their faces. They were all Bonders. The two young Loners noticed that they were now being stared at. Embarrassed, they got up and hurried to get their belongings, their cheeks red.

The waitress didn't seem to be more comfortable with the situation either.

"B-but the place next to the Venice painting is very good too," she said in a vain attempt to appease the two Loners.

Sam looked at the indicated section. It was dark with old little tables, close to the toilets. On entering the restaurant, the hero had assumed that this section was probably only used as a last resort, in case of high traffic. It didn't look that way.

It was disgusting.

Steve was probably thinking the same thing, since his jaw was tight, and his eyes were looking at the scene unfolding close to them coldly.

"Uh, that's okay, we wanted to get ice cream anyway," the boy said to the waitress.

The manager of the restaurant, in the back, pointed to the exit, before saying loud and clear, "Well, thanks for coming. The door's that way."

Steve couldn't take it anymore. For the next moment, he stood up and intervened:

"If you need to be accompanied by Bonders to sit in this section, it will be our pleasure to share our table with you."

All eyes converged on Steve, to see who had the courage or the audacity to defend the two young Loners.

Steve took off his cap and the air suddenly changed. Eyes widened, the manager turned pale and the three teenage girls behind Steve opened their mouths in shock. Glances were cast between Steve and Sam, and the connection seemed to be made among all the customers in the restaurant. They were in the presence of two of the greatest heroes of America in this small New York diner.

Steve ignored the gaze of the others, however, and stared at the couple, who definitely didn't know where to stand. The redheaded girl and her boyfriend stared at the supersoldier, as if they couldn't believe that Captain America was bothering to talk to them.

"I'm sure you won't mind," Steve said, turning his head and dipping his eyes into the restaurant manager's.

Steve wasn't giving him the choice. He had used that tone of voice that left no room for reply, and the manager didn't dare to go against the captain's request either.

"W-well, of course, Captain Rogers," stammered the restaurant manager. "If, uh, if you insist, there's no problem."

Steve nodded and sat back down. When he looked again at the couple of Loners still standing and astonished, he gave them a softer smile and invited them to join him and Sam's table with a wave of his hand.

The two Loners came out of their shock at the same time. They looked around discreetly one last time to make sure no one was going to make any comments, and then they walked towards the two heroes, uncertain.

The boy pulled two chairs from a nearby table for him and his girlfriend, and they settled down in a timid silence near the heroes. The table was too small for the four adults, since it was made for two, but no one made any comment on it.

The waitress came back, to take the orders of the two Loners. Steve didn't notice her, but for a split second, she laid her eyes on the captain with a certain respect. She then promised the two Loners that she would return with their food quickly and slipped away.

The conversations around them gradually resumed, discreetly. Perhaps the other customers were afraid to bother the heroes with their loud voices. Steve often had that effect.

"Thank you," the girl whispered after a silence.

"It was the least I could do," said Steve, reaching out to introduce himself. "Steve Rogers."

"Sam Wilson," Sam added, following his friend's gesture.

The two Loners grabbed their hands, and the boy smiled slightly, "We know who you are, of course. My name is Damien, and this is my girlfriend Harper. And yes, thank you for earlier. You didn't have to... but... but thank you, really."

"You should be allowed to sit wherever you want, without the help of heroes," said Sam, leaning his back against the back of his chair.

There were too many of them, places like this restaurant, where the Loners couldn't mingle with the others. Many public places still had sections, rooms or toilets reserved specifically for Loners, and they were expelled from the building if they didn't respect the rules. This was to maintain a "climate suitable for all," it was said. Sam didn't understand how people could make excuses like this without wincing at their own nonsense.

"Bonders are much more suspicious of us because of this disease in our quarters," Harper said. "It's quite contagious."

For several weeks now, a dangerous virus has been spreading in the Loners' districts. The disease had already killed several of them and the situation seemed to be getting worse by the day. But as it had not yet affected the Bonders, the media rarely talked about it, and never with much detail.

"Did we finally figure out what it was?" Steve asked. "A mutation of the flu virus, like some people thought?"

"Now we're sure it's not that," Damien said shaking his head. "The symptoms are too different."

"What do your doctors think?" Sam asked. "Are they close to finding a cure, at least?"

"No, not at the moment," Harper replied. "And, uh, our hospitals don't always have the equipment or technology to develop something quickly."

"Crawford said he wanted to do something about it yesterday," Steve noted.

There was an election this year, and Harry Crawford was one of the candidates in the presidential race. The campaigns had started several months ago.

Sam had never been particularly interested in politics. For him, it was a world full of hypocrites who spent their time stabbing each other in the back. He had never had a very positive opinion of government shenanigans.

But now that Steve mentioned it, Sam had to admit he was impressed that Crawford had said a word in favour of the Loners so early in his campaign. The conditions of the Loners were normally a subject that came between the Environment and Taxes, much later in the race.

"He seems like an honest man to me," Steve continued, still talking about Crawford.

"Sometimes it doesn't mean anything," Sam said, crossing his arms.

"He's the only one who's interested in us, at least," Harper said. "Right now, we're hoping he'll win, but there aren't many people who seem to support him like we do."

"At least he'll have both your v-"

Cap suddenly fell silent, for he must have remembered that very few Loners had the right to vote. What remained unsaid was nevertheless easy to guess.

Before an uncomfortable silence sat between the four adults, the waitress returned with the orders of the two Loners. They thanked her and the Latina gave them a final nod before walking away.

Sam and Steve had barely touched their own food, which was now cold. They ignored this detail, however, and wished the two Loners a "bon appétit". Harper and Damien didn't look any more cheerful about their food, but they all forced themselves to eat.

And they stopped talking about politics.


	3. Chapter 3

.

**September 09, 2016**

.

"Give me a minute, Parker," said the director without looking up at the woman who had just walked into her office.

May Parker nodded as she closed the door behind her. She went to sit in one of the chairs in front of her boss's desk and watched the other woman continue signing various documents.

The office of the Director of Nursing looked as stern as the director herself, with grey walls, a simple wooden table and black chairs. Not a picture or a trinket decorated the walls and empty corners. The only thing that gave the room a little warmth was the framed picture of three children on the right side of the desk. May didn't know if the director never had time to decorate or if she preferred to leave the place impersonal. May didn't dare to ask.

Ingrid Burton was a stout and horribly intimidating African-American woman who didn't care whether her employees had Envèls on their arms or not. She insulted everyone equally if a job was badly done, and she was not known for having favorites. May didn't see her smiling often either, except with her brother from time to time. To be honest, Mrs. Burton was far from friendly. But she was fair. For this, May liked her very much.

Mrs. Burton was not May's direct boss, however. She was further up the chain of command. So, if the director wanted to talk to her, it must have been serious.

And May was afraid to know why.

"So, Parker, I heard what happened this afternoon" Mrs. Burton said, without preamble, putting away her papers.

The apprehension that May had felt a minute earlier was multiplied by 10 when the director came out with this simple sentence. She had been unsure of why exactly she'd been summoned, but having the confirmation of it squeezed her chest unpleasantly. May didn't even dare to speak.

Mrs. Burton did not seem to notice the disturbance caused by her introduction, for when she finally raised her head on her employee, her face was unbiased.

"It's made a mess," Mrs. Burton continued.

May lowered her eyes to her hands, feeling shame and frustration rise up inside her as she recalled the scene from that afternoon.

She was good at her job. She even worked harder than the others, because the Loners had the reputation of being incompetent, didn't they? For years she'd been trying to prove that that myth wasn't true. Mrs. Burton knew it. May's direct supervisor knew it. Some of her colleagues had also come to realize it over the years. But not all their patients and families had had time to be convinced.

That afternoon, on her way back from dinner, May had seen a beautiful black-haired woman at their section's reception counter, chatting heatedly with the secretary present. It was the wife of one of her patients who had had an aneurysm two days earlier, Mrs. Miller. May had approached the counter without either Mrs. Miller or the secretary noticing her.

_"She's giving my husband too much medicine, I'm telling you! "_ the woman was arguing in her high heels. _"He's always passed out and complains of pain. Does she really have a recognized certification to be a nurse? I would have thought you'd hire competent staff!"_

They had been talking about May.

Mrs. Miller -with her Louis Vuitton bag and her gold Envèl probably worth half a million dollars- hadn't given May very nice looks when they met in her husband's bedroom. But May hadn't expected Mrs. Miller to complain about her services at the reception desk. May used to take extra care of her intolerant patients, so that they would have nothing to say against her at the end of the day. She had used the same strategy with the Miller family.

With an annoyed look on her face, Cynthia, the secretary, had opened her mouth to answer the rich woman, but she had turned her head towards May, noticing her out of the corner of her eye. Mrs. Miller had followed the secretary's gaze and had not seemed embarrassed to see the subject of her conversion just a few steps away from her. Mrs. Miller had raised her chin and said, _"I would like my husband to be cared for by another nurse. A Bonder, if possible."_

At that, Cynthia had lost patience, saying that May's care for Mr. Miller had nothing to do with whether or not she had a soulmate. Mrs. Miller had not been happy with this response. The tone had risen. She was paying, she'd said, so if she didn't want her husband to be cared for by a Soulless woman, the hospital had better listen to her. Besides, wasn't there a serious illness running around in their neighbourhoods? Mrs. Miller had added. They were all going to be infected!

The scene had caught the eye of some of the families in the waiting room, who added their voices to defend Mrs. Miller and her poor husband who was being abused by the Loner nurse. Several hospital employees had to intervene to calm the tense atmosphere.

May had remained standing, during the whole scene, and said nothing.

Because it wasn't the first time it happened.

The Mainsford General Hospital was one of the top five hospitals in the state. It was heavily frequented by Bonders. So, when the latter were admitted to the premises, they all expected to be served by Bonders. The most polite ones and open-minded didn't say anything when they saw May, but from time to time, some extremists, such as Mrs. Miller, would show their displeasure.

However, this was the first time May had been summoned to the Director of Nursing's office because of this.

"It...it was just a misunderstanding" May said, looking up at her boss.

"A misunderstanding you didn't handle."

Mrs. Burton wasn't accusing her with that remark. She was using the same neutral tone as at the beginning, studying her employee carefully.

May twisted her hand with a nervous gesture, forcing herself to hold her boss's gaze, "Well, Mrs. Miller finally got what she wanted, so she-"

"Why didn't you say anything?" Mrs. Burton cut in.

_Because it would have been worse._

A prey was not seeking the attention of its predator to be eaten, normally. It was a basic rule.

"I didn't want to make things worse," May said.

The director didn't answer. She continued to observe May deeply without blinking, as if she could read through her employee. May repositioned herself in her chair, uncomfortable to be scrutinized like this.

Finally, Mrs. Burton relaxed her posture and leaned her back against the back of her chair. She then crossed her hands over her thighs and said:

"You know, Parker, I've always felt lucky to be born a Bonder, and not a Loner. It was one less discrimination I had to deal with. I'm not saying I understand what you go through every day, far from it. But my Envèl has not always protected me from everything, especially when I was young and looking for a place in society. I may have been the favorite between the choice of a Bonder and a Loner in many situations, but once I found myself among Bonders, Whites were preferred. Once among Blacks, men were preferred. Once among women, thin ones were preferred."

May wasn't expecting that kind of talk. Especially not from Director Burton, who usually had such a stern attitude towards everyone. Opening up about her past wasn't like her.

She then thought about what her boss had just revealed to her and felt strangely jaded when she heard these confessions. There were indeed all kinds of segregation in life.

"I'm sorry," May whispered, not knowing what else to say.

"Don't be," said Mrs. Burton. "I never was. People love to discriminate for one thing or another; it's one of the most popular hobbies in the world. If I had cried myself to sleep when I learned that truth when I was young, I wouldn't be sitting where I am right now. My family owns this hospital, but my father wasn't the type to show favoritism in the hiring process and I was too proud to think about it myself. So I went to prove myself in other hospitals before I came back here, and I showed everyone that I was good at what I did, regardless of my Envèl, skin color, sex or weight.

Mrs. Burton straightened up and leaned her arms, this time, on her wooden desk to watch May with the same disturbing intensity of earlier. There was a moment of silence that made May strangely anxious. The director didn't leave her in the lurch for long, however:

"I talked to Woods. We're planning on making you team supervisor."

May's eyes widened like saucers, and her mouth opened. Astonished, the brunette could not find the voice for long seconds, before she managed to croak, "Wha... I... S-Sorry?"

Upon entering Ingrid Burton's office, May had expected to be lectured, or worse, fired. Certainly not to be promoted, just after having created a scene that could tarnish the hospital's reputation. She found it hard to believe.

"Are you serious!?" asked the nurse.

"Do I look like I'm joking?" Mrs. Burton replied without a smile.

No.

The Director of Nursing never made jokes.

May swallowed, the news starting to make its way into her mind. Her, May Parker, a Loner living in Queens, as a team supervisor at one of New York's top hospitals? May closed her eyes for a moment, still unable to get used to the idea. Somehow, yes, she was flattered, sure. But the rest...

The rest...

The rest was going to be impossible.

"My colleagues will never accept me as their supervisor," May murmured, reopening her eyelids.

"You think you can't do it?" Mrs. Burton asked seriously.

"No, that's not it" May said honestly.

She knew she worked well, and she was experienced enough to know how to maximize the effectiveness of a team. In other circumstances, she would have seen herself as a supervisor. But not in a hospital full of Bonders.

Only half of her colleagues accepted her. There were 6 Loners in all working at the hospital, and May was the one who did best with one out of two people considering her as a human being. It may have been a better fate than the other 5 Loners, it wasn't enough to be in charge of a team.

"You're competent, Parker," Mrs. Burton asserted. "Believe me, Woods and I didn't make this decision on a whim. It will cause controversy. A real mess, to be honest. But we think you're worth it."

"The Bonders of this hospital will never accept me as their boss, Mrs. Burton. If I'd been in a Loners Hospital, I'd have said yes right away, but here-"

"If women had been accepted only by women, they would not have gotten very far. If Black people had only been accepted by other Black people, they would never have gotten out of slavery. It took men to recognize women's rights, it took White people to make room for Black people. It'll take Bonders to understand that Loners can share their society. I'm not gonna hide it from you, Parker. You're a test. A test that hopefully will work. But if we're gonna make a difference, we have to start risking something."

May remained silent, a furious inner debate raging inside her. Did she want to take risks? The answer was no. If she had been the type to take risks, she would have answered Mrs. Miller and told her to fuck off. But she hadn't.

However, if she stood by and did nothing, she might miss a chance to make Peter's future better. The discrimination wasn't going to go away overnight, but she could make a small contribution to the struggle... Even if she was going to get her back lacerated in the process.

Slowly, May put her head in her hands, wondering what to do.

"It won't be easy, I know," continued the director a little more softly. "You'll be disrespected more often than not. And with this disease spreading among the Loners, some Bonders will be even more suspicious of you and make your life harder. You'll have more bad days than good days, at the beginning, that's for sure. There will even be days when you'll get tired of everything and you'll want to quit. But, Parker, even if there's a strike outside this building, I can promise you that you'll keep your job, no matter how many complaints land on my desk. I think it's time to 'make things worse'."

May calmly exhaled. The director remained silent, while the nurse in front of her pulled herself together. May was grateful for the silence.

After a while, she stood up and looked her boss straight in the eye, "I'll think about it."

"Take your time. Even if I hope you'll accept, it's not an obligation. But think it over carefully. And be discreet about it, for now."

"Alright, I'll... okay."

Mrs. Burton nodded, satisfied. Then she took one of her files from her desk and opened it.

"Good. Close the door on your way out," said the African-American woman without giving her employee another look.

May was a bit taken aback by this abrupt dismissal, but she didn't need to be told twice. She got up and walked to the door.

Before leaving the room, she hesitated and turned to the other woman.

"Thank you, Mrs. Burton," May gratefully whispered.

"Hm," the director replied, her eyes still fixed on the papers in front of her.

May smiled faintly and walked out of the office.

She knew that she had been very fortunate to be hired at this hospital. There weren't many Loners working here, indeed, but it wasn't because of their lack of Envèl. Few Loners dared to apply in this kind of establishment dominated by the Bonders. When May had tried it, many years before, she never thought she would be called back.

She arrived at the locker room and ignored the looks of some of her colleagues. This afternoon's scene had not been discreet at all. She must have been the gossip of the day.

The nurse sighed and opened her locker. She looked in her purse to take out her cell phone and unlocked it once she got her hands on it.

May smiled when she saw the new wallpaper that her nephew had put for her the day before. It was a selfie of her and Peter, in Central Park. The weather had been nice that day. It was a beautiful picture.

Her smile grew sadder as she watched the image for a long time.

Maybe it was time to lure the predators to her. If only to draw them away from those she wanted to protect.

May sighed and texted her nephew.

**TO: Peter**

**2016/09/09 02:47pm**

_I'm going to the grocery store, so I'll be home later tonight_

_I hope you had a great day! :) XXX_

* * *

Peter's phone vibrated in his pocket.

He pulled it out, expecting to see Ned's name on the screen. Since Peter was missing the end of the last class of the day, his friend was supposed to text him the math homework their teacher would give them for the next class.

But it wasn't Ned who just wrote to him. It was May.

**FROM: Aunt May**

**2016/09/09 02:47pm**

_I'm going to the grocery store, so I'll be home later tonight_

_I hope you had a great day! :) XXX_

Peter smiled as he read the message. His aunt had been working day shifts for some time. She didn't come home "early" per se, but at least they could have dinner together in the evening. He was happy to see her more often.

"Just give me a minute, Peter, and I'm yours!" said Miss Clark as she hurriedly typed on her computer keyboard.

Peter set his eyes on the woman with raven black hair and green glasses. Eyebrows frowned, she was absorbed by the screen in front of her, her Envèl reflecting slightly in the light of the computer. According to rumors, Miss Clark shared a Fraternity Bond with her sister, and she wore a dazzling pink Envèl that always clashed horribly with her clothes. Peter often wondered if Miss Clark and her sister had been drunk when they chose the colour of their Envèls.

Miss Clark, however, seemed to like bright colours, if Peter trusted her office. The walls were an aggressive orange, the chairs were an equally bright turquoise, and the woman had apparently thought that adding red and yellow accessories would make the place more attractive. It didn't. Peter's eyes hurt every time he walked into that room.

"Okay, Peter. What can I do for you?" Miss Clark asked, turning to the young man and giving him a big smile.

The guidance counsellor may have had questionable taste, but she was nice. Peter was just hoping she'd accept his request.

"It's about my course, 'Bonders connection,'" Peter began.

By reflex, the counsellor's eyes fell on Peter's left arm, devoid of Envèl. Her gaze focused again on the teenager sitting in front of her, and she asked curiously, "What's wrong with the class?"

"The class is..."

_Humiliating._

Peter didn't dare to say that.

He tried to find another term to describe his problematic course. He thought of "useless," but the guidance counsellor would probably take offence if he came up with it. Nevertheless, he had to try to make her understand.

"I'm a Loner," Peter began slowly. "I don't have a Bond Partner, or a Bonder Mark…or an Envèl, or-or _anything_."

Miss Clark sighed at the answer.

"Oh, Peter," she said, taking off her green glasses. "I know this class may seem trivial to you, but I promise you it's not. Bonders and Loners share our society. Understanding each other is a step towards acceptance and against discrimination."

Peter knew very well who was leading the reins of this world between the Bonders and the Loners. He really didn't need a lecture for that. A step towards 'acceptance and against discrimination' she said? She must have been joking. The first thing the teacher, Mr. Luis, had said at the beginning of his class was "The human soul is not made to live alone", without taking into consideration Peter's presence. Yet Mr. Luis knew that Peter was a Loner. Clearly, he hadn't wanted to change his introduction because of that.

"I've never heard of a course on Loners. Especially not at this school" Peter couldn't help but say.

This time, the counsellor seemed embarrassed.

"W-Well, it's true and it's deplorable," she conceded.

"Then would it be possible to take another course instead?" Peter hastened to say to make his point. "I know the year has already started a few days ago, but I swear I can catch up on the lessons easily. I've looked into the advanced biology course and it doesn't interfere with my other courses in-"

"Peter."

Miss Clark seemed sorry. She looked at him with the same look as those adults who were forced to deny Peter something because of his status.

"I'm sorry, but Bonders Connection is a mandatory course."

A heavy silence fell between them. The counsellor looked away, as if she did not want to see Peter's morale crumble before her.

99% of the students at Midtown School of Science and Technology were Bonders, so the course probably didn't seem absurd to the other parents. When you wanted to excel in one thing or another, you wanted to be informed about it or study it. It made sense. It made sense if you were concerned, anyway.

Peter wasn't.

"I know it may seem odd to learn the rules of our class-, of our, uh, of B-Bonders," Miss Clark fumbled. "But I can assure you it will come in handy later. You're smart, Peter. I sincerely believe that you'll succeed in being hired in a great company. But I'm not going to hide it from you, these companies are normally dominated by Bonders and you could get fired for a trivial matter concerning our customs. For example, do you know how to recognize the signs of an Envelium?"

Peter hesitated. He knew what an Envelium was; a room reserved for a pair of Bonders that was strictly forbidden to others. The Envelium of Ned's parents was in their basement, and even their son had never set foot in it. Peter had to admit that if his friend hadn't pointed the room out to him, he would never have known the place was sacred.

Miss Clark took Peter's hesitation as an answer and nodded her head before continuing, "There are sometimes the Envelium of leaders in companies. What would happen if you were caught trying to get in by mistake? You would be fired immediately."

"But I can learn how to avoid this kind of faux pas from books, without needing a year of class for that," Peter said. "You should see how Mr. Luis talks about the Loners. He says-"

Peter fell silent, his throat tied. He was getting angry and hadn't come to complain about his teacher. Not directly, anyway.

Mr. Luis wasn't mean to Peter. On the contrary, the teacher was always very polite with the teenager. It was just the way he talked about the Loners. As if they were unfortunate, defective humans that people should try to understand. As if nature had forgotten to add something to them by trying to mold them. Mr. Luis felt sorry for them.

Peter sincerely wondered if it wasn't worse than the usual hatred.

"He's just... passionate about his subject," the guidance counsellor said.

Based on the woman's fleeting gaze, she herself did not believe what she was saying.

Another uncomfortable silence weighed on their shoulders. The teenager saw the woman open her mouth once or twice, seeming to want to add something to soothe the student, but she changed her mind each time.

The end of the day bell rang, crossing the foggy unease that was invading the room. Peter took this as a sign to get up. He stowed his cell phone in the back pocket of his jeans and put his bag over his right shoulder, ready to leave this fluorescent room. Miss Clark put her green glasses back on her nose and said in an uncertain tone, "If you... if you have any difficulties in this class, don't hesitate to talk about it."

"Okay...Thank you, Miss Clark," said Peter softly.

The woman gave him one last sorry smile, and Peter walked out of the office.

The students were all leaving the classrooms and their loud voices echoed off the corridor walls. Peter looked at the tidal wave of teenagers and sighed.

He had a Decathlon practice, but Peter really didn't feel like going to his extracurricular activities. He had homework. On his awesome 'Bonders Connection' class.

Peter couldn't believe he was going to have to endure such a class.

_"...I hope you had a great day! :) XXX"_

It wasn't ending well, in any case.

Someone suddenly ran into his shoulder, knocking his backpack to the ground. Peter was startled at the shove and almost lost his balance. When he looked up to see who had run into him, he saw Flash and three of his friends pass him. His Nemesis threw over his shoulder:

"Watch where you're going, Penis Parker!"

Flash's friends laughed and stupidly repeated the nickname as they walked away. Peter crouched down to pick up his bag without a word. Flash was also going to be at the Decathlon practice. All the more reason not to go and make Peter's mood worse. He really didn't need this today.

Decided, Peter got up and walked in the direction of his locker, intending to get his coat and play hooky. But he stopped dead in his tracks as he turned the corner of a hallway.

There was a crowd around his locker.

And Peter immediately guessed why.

His doubts were confirmed when some teenagers moved to let him see the state of his locker. On the door, in bright red, was written roughly "Soulless" and a crude ghost was drawn just underneath.

Two or three students were laughing while taking pictures, some noticed Peter further away and gave him a sorry look, but most seemed to be there just to witness the drama or be entertained. Peter couldn't even find the strength to approach.

A teacher arrived to see what was causing the ruckus. He noticed Peter's vandalized locker and demanded the names of the perpetrators in an angry voice. No one answered. No one was going to answer. And no one was going to get the graffiti removed today, because it hadn't been erased the same day the last few times either.

Peter looked at the scene in front of him with an empty eye. The images blurred, and the voices around him became a background noise.

_"...I hope you had a good day! :) XXX"_

The teen closed his eyes, trying not to fall into the weariness that had been gripping him for a few weeks. He had to pull himself together.

When he reopened his eyelids, he slowly grabbed his phone and opened it. He then answered his aunt's text:

.

**TO: Aunt May**

**2016/09/09 03:09pm**

_Yeah, thx! Hope you had a great day too! :) XXX_


	4. Chapter 4

.

**_September 19, 2016_ **

.

Sarah Rogers hadn't believed her eyes when she saw the curved black mark on the inside of her new-born's left forearm.

Steven Grant Rogers, her son, had a Bond Mark. Steven Grant Rogers was a Bonder.

She'd cried. For a long time. Unlike her and her husband, her son had a future. Life had become wonderful again from then on.

Sarah had been envied by others, since she had a child who could make a noble place for himself in society. What had also frustrated the others was that Steve was thin, weak and always sick. The other Loner mothers had found it unfair that such a frail boy had the opportunity to have a future far more prestigious than that of their own healthy children, just because of the mark he had on his skin. Sarah had ignored all comments. If Fate had chosen to make her son a Bonder, it was probably because of his heart, regardless of his physical condition.

Bonder children were often forced to change their Envèl as they grew up, so Steve's Envèls had always eaten half of their savings. But Sarah had never been so happy to be so poor. Her son's future was worth it.

That was what Steve's mother had told him, anyway. When he was young. When she was still alive.

For his part, Steve particularly remembered being bullied and beaten up regularly during his youth. Because he was small and weak and didn't deserve his Envèl, the other children had said. Steve had taken some time to realize that his Bond Mark wasn't bad in itself, even though the other boys often beat him because of it. Bucky also had a Bond Mark and an Envèl to hide it. His best friend, who was tall, charismatic, intelligent and kind was also a Bonder. So, Steve's Bond Mark couldn't be implicitly bad, if his best friend had one too.

Being Bonders in a poor neighborhood was like finding horses in a chicken coop. It stood out. It drew attention. Good attention for Bucky, and bad for Steve. In short, they were treated differently, and that was one of the reasons the two boys had been close friends. So close, in fact, that when Bucky had joined the army, Steve had wanted to do the same.

Steve knew that he had caused his mother great pain, as she couldn't understand why her son wanted to waste his privileged life to go to war. It had made the woman sick. She had told him over and over that he could live his life differently, that he could do very well in life, without getting himself killed.

 _"James is not your Bond Partner. You don't have to follow him."_ she'd said.

That remark had hurt.

Steve and Bucky were indeed not Bond Partners and the two boys had spent their entire youth wondering why. Everything pointed to the fact that Steve and Bucky could have shared a Fraternity Bond. Even the people around them took it for granted that they were Partners. But their Bond Marks had never reacted in the presence of the other.

That, however, hadn't changed Steve's decision. Yes, he wanted to go to the front lines like Bucky, but it wasn't just because of him that Steve wanted to join the army. His country needed men to defend it. Although Steve was a Bonder, he wanted to serve his people, no matter what he had on his left arm.

So he had met Dr. Abraham Erskine who had turned him into Captain America and he'd gone to war. He'd been mentioned in the newspapers; the frail Bonder, born of Loner parents, who was now saving his Homeland. Steve had just hoped that his family was at least proud of that, even though he had given up the idea of becoming a rich businessman because of his status. Giving peace back to the world was more important to him.

Then Bucky had been ripped from him when he fell off that train, Steve had crashed the plane he was in to save his Nation, and he had woken up to find himself in a world full of noise and light. Seventy years later.

It had been hard.

He had closed his eyes one day and reopened them again to realize that all his friends and family were old or buried. It was like seeing the people around him fall off a cliff and being the only one lucky enough to be held by a rope. It was like being shipwrecked in the open sea and being the only one with a ring buoy. Steve had spent weeks trying to shut off the silent agony and the feeling of utter emptiness that had been eating away at him since he had woken up to this new era. He was a relic that had been dug up and everyone expected him to function properly and continue to save the world as before.

He'd done it because that was what people wanted from him. He'd done it because he was Captain America and he wasn't supposed to show weakness. And he'd done it because he had now become attached to loved ones that he would never exchange to return to his time.

Including Sharon Carter.

Even though their relationship was a little... uncertain.

"I'm sorry about your Ceremony," said Steve.

They were outside, in a park on the west side of town. A dazzling sun was making passers-by squint their eyes and a few clouds decorated the sky.

Sharon was sitting to Steve's right on a bench under a beech tree that was losing its leaves. She was dressed in a white T-shirt and dark jeans, and she had raised her golden hair in an unruly ponytail. She was pretty, casually dressed like that. Even though she had a particularly tired look on her face.

The agent shook her head at Steve's remark and whispered:

"Katrina's health is more important."

Katrina was the wife of Will Avery, Sharon's Bond Partner.

Will was a cop in his early 30s who'd been working for the NYPD for about 20 years. He and Sharon had met during an arrest of drug dealers and had soon set a date for a Sealing Ceremony. With their respective jobs, they couldn't afford to suffer the consequences of an incomplete Bond for too long.

Steve's mission to Malta had gone smoothly and he had been pleased to see that he and Sam would be back in New York in time for Sharon's Sealing Ceremony. But upon their arrival, he had been surprised to learn that the Ceremony had been postponed due to the health of Will's wife.

"How is she?" asked Steve.

"Not very well," sighed Sharon. "Like all the others."

They watched the park and its occupants in silence. A mother and her three young children were sitting on a powder blue tablecloth near the water fountains. A group of teenage girls were relaxing under the shade of a tree further to their left, and a little girl was playing ball with her dog in the middle of the park.

Sharon and Steve's mood was in sharp contrast to the bright atmosphere around them.

"Will doesn't even know if she's going to make it," Sharon added after a while.

"I thought it had only been a few days since she was diagnosed," said Steve.

"Yes, but her body is reacting very badly to whatever is attacking her. Those who had similar symptoms died the following week."

Nobody knew much about the disease.

Except that there was still no cure.

And that it was killing far too many people across the United States not to be alarming.

Will was right to be scared.

"I'm sorry," said Steve. "Convey my sympathies to Will."

Sharon smiled sadly; "He was so excited to meet you. He would have wanted to come today."

She emitted a faint mocking laugh, her eyes fixed on her lap:

"He keeps bragging to anyone who will listen that his Bond Partner knows Captain America. He's embarrassing."

Steve smiled back. Sharon had not been the kind of Bonder who daydreamed every day about meeting her future Partner. She had barely spoken about it before. But now that she had found hers, the captain was eager to meet him.

The laughter of the little girl playing with her dog rose in the middle of the park and caught Steve's attention. Her labrador was happily wagging his tail a few metres away from her, waiting for her to throw him the ball. The ball had rolled to near the mother sitting on the floor with her three children.

One of the 3 children, a little boy who couldn't have been more than 5 years old, wanted to have the good faith to throw the ball back to the little girl and her dog. But when the mother saw the other kid approaching, she discreetly held her son by his T-shirt and pushed him away. The girl did not have an Envèl on her left arm. The mother and her three children did.

When the little girl was at their level to retrieve her ball, the mother handed it to her with a smile, but the woman took care to position her body between the young Loner and her own children.

The girl smiled as she took her ball back and then she went back to her dog. She did not notice anything about the mother's strange behaviour, who seemed relieved when the young Loner walked away. The mother then hurriedly took a tiny bottle of disinfectant out of her bag, poured a small amount of liquid into her hands and rubbed them vigorously.

When Steve turned his head, he saw that Sharon had also observed the scene.

"The Bonders are starting to panic," Steve said.

California, Illinois, and New Jersey were beginning to quarantine neighbourhoods and encourage Loners to stay home. New York would soon follow suit.

Most other countries in the world had also suspended flights connecting with the United States, and even Canada was planning to close its borders in the coming days. The epidemic was getting out of control.

"Some say this disease is the revenge of the Loners." said Sharon, her eyes still fixed on the little girl and her dog.

"It's the Loners who die first," said Steve.

"I never said this theory made any sense."

The Bonders all thought they were immune to the disease at first, but they were realizing that this was not the case. And it was just now that governments decided to take action because it was starting to affect Bonders.

The first Bonder had fallen ill a week before. It was rumoured that he had been infected by his housekeeper, a Loner who had been working for him for years. The news had shocked all the Bonders across the United States.

"Supremacist Bonders are turning the entire population against the Loners because of this disease," said Sharon. "Some even talk about a _purge_. If it continues like this, we're going to have another round of attacks."

Steve suddenly felt tired too. Everything about the treatment of the Loners often plunged him into a state of anger, sadness, or disappointment, and all these injustices drained him mentally.

"We're going to stop them," said Steve.

"From carrying out attacks? Or from turning Bonders against Loners?" Sharon asked.

"Both."

"Stopping killings is easier than stopping a stream of hate. This new epidemic is not helping. Honestly, would we have reacted any differently than that mother did earlier?"

Steve's first instinct was to say yes, that he would have reacted differently. He had never understood that people could judge a whole community based on looks, origins or status. They were all human beings.

However, he had to admit that if he had children, he might have thought twice before exposing them to someone who might carry a disease that would have a chance of killing them.

If he, Steve Rogers, thought like that, even though he had never had an ounce of racism in him, he didn't want to imagine what all the other Bonders who could barely stand the presence of the Loners were thinking.

Sharon took Steve's silence as an answer. They returned to watching the park activities without a word, each one immersed in their own thoughts.

If they could at least find a cure, it would surely help to lower the rising animosity towards the Loners. Steve saw no other short-term solution. Bruce had unfortunately been MIA for several months. He might have been able to help with the research.

Sharon, after a moment, her eyes lost in the greenery stretching out in front of them, began to play with her Envèl in a distracted way. At the top and bottom of the grey bracer, the CIA agent's skin was red and terribly irritated. Steve gently took Sharon's left hand, taking care not to touch her Envèl.

"It looks painful," said Steve. "You're hanging in there?"

Sharon grimaced. "Sometimes It's like I can't feel my arm. But my doctor gave me some painkillers."

"And at work?"

"My boss has limited some of my duties; it could be dangerous with my arm in this condition. He can't wait for me to seal with Will, though."

Bonders sharing a Strength Bond were often encouraged to work together. This kind of bond was meant for combat, so in a dangerous intervention, such a pair was more effective most of the time. Sharon had been trying to get Will into the CIA for a few weeks.

"Our Sealer also told us not to hang around too much, if we don't want it to affect the rest of our bodies," continued Sharon.

"But Katrina..."

Steve didn't know how to finish his sentence without sounding indelicate. There was no cure at the moment, so Katrina would either stay sick or die in the next few days. He just wanted to know what Sharon and her Partner were going to do about it. As Sharon had said, they couldn't postpone their Sealing Ceremony indefinitely, it would be too risky for them.

"The next date is set for three weeks from now, no matter... no matter what happens to Katrina." Sharon whispered, looking like she'd guessed what Steve was trying to ask.

Steve simply nodded, saddened at the thought of Will sealing himself with his wife's death in mind. It wasn't going to be a happy Ceremony, and it wasn't supposed to be like that.

Sharon, beside him, hesitated for a moment before saying:

"If Will's wife leaves us, he has no intention of staying in New York. He'd rather start over... somewhere else. In another state."

There was a pause, while activities in the park echoed in the background. Steve was surprised not to know how to feel at Sharon's statement.

"I can be transferred," Sharon continued. "I asked in advance."

The question of their precarious relationship remained suspended in the air. Neither of them seemed to want to open their mouths about it and Steve didn't even think he had the right to do so. Because if their relationship was so fragile, it was largely because of him.

Will Avery was part of one of the few remaining traditional families who did not believe in the love between two Bonders with a Platonic Bond. Even in Steve's day, this mentality was beginning to be challenged, but the captain had always agreed with this logic.

Bonders who shared a Bond of Knowledge, Strength or Fraternity with their Partner almost never had sexual attraction to each other. Even if Will's wife died in the next few days, the chances of the police officer becoming involved with Sharon afterwards were pretty nil.

However, even though Bonders with Platonic Bonds were never in a relationship with their own Partner, it didn't mean that they couldn't fall in love with other Bonders who were completely independent of them. And from then on, it became complicated for many reasons. For centuries, society had wanted Bonders with Platonic Bonds to marry only Loners.

Sharon and Steve were both Bonders. Sharon and Steve did not share a Love Bond. Being in a relationship with Sharon under these circumstances had always been a strange concept to the Captain, and he knew that it had held him back in his relationship.

Sharon must also have known that in Steve's mind she was unconsciously being compared to her aunt, Peggy, who had been one of the strongest Loner women of her time.

So, really, if Sharon wanted to go and start a new life somewhere else, Steve didn't think he had the right to say anything. And she'd found her Bond Partner. Steve wasn't her priority anymore. Steve would never be her priority again.

"I see. " said the hero.

"If the worst happens, we won't leave until after the election," said Sharon. "It won't be now. It's not sure yet, anyway."

Steve didn't know how to answer that.

So he just nodded again and added nothing.

* * *

.

Everybody thought it was just a contagious flu at first.

The symptoms were horrible, but they looked like the flu.

Until the patients end up with green patches on their skin.

That was not a normal symptom of the flu.

The Bonders had seemed to be spared the new epidemic at first. Only the hospitals of the Loners were filling up fast. Several theories were coming out in the media to explain this phenomenon. Some said that not having a soulmate made the immune system of the Loners weaker, and that the Bonders could fight the spreading disease naturally. Or something like that. Peter didn't know. He never read the articles to the end.

He just knew that the media was calling this new disease "The Green Fever".

Two of Peter and May's neighbours were already infected, and Mr. Delmar's wife had also begun to develop symptoms of the disease a few days earlier. May herself was subjected to a multitude of tests before going to work and had to follow strict preventive measures. Peter knew that May's bosses were relatively more open about her status, but like it or not, the disease seemed to have taken root only in the Loners' quarters. It had been known for several days that Bonders were not so much spared by the disease, finally, so the hospital May worked in did not want to take any risks. But at least she could work, and her co-workers left her more or less alone until now.

Peter wasn't exactly as lucky as his aunt.

He'd never been very popular in school. In fact, he was right at the bottom of the scale when it came to popularity. But since the Green Fever had exploded, his student life had become unbearable. Peter almost liked it better when he was tripped in the hallways and his locker was covered with insults. It was simple and predictable, at least. But now, with the exception of MJ, Ned and a few compassionate souls, everyone else seemed to have made it their mission to get Peter out of school at all costs.

The young Loner was no longer going on social networks, and he was now avoiding being alone in a corner of the school without an adult. He could defend himself. God knew he had the power to defend himself. But using Spider-Man's strength to beat up his classmates was not the behavior of a hero worthy of the name. Even though, these days, Peter had to admit that he really _really_ wanted to slap the hell out of everyone in the school.

"I'm sorry, dude," Ned grimaced when he saw the state of his best friend's bags.

Peter had left his school bag and gym bag on a chair for barely 5 minutes while he asked the class teacher a question, and when he'd turned around, his bags were gone. With Ned's help, he had found them 15 minutes later in the corner of a corridor, covered with a green, slimy substance. A reminder of the disease that was running outside, probably.

Peter opened his school bag and gritted his teeth when he saw that there was also sticky green substance inside the bag, on all his books and personal belongings. His gym bag must have had the same fate.

"Ah, seriously," sighed Ned as he noticed the damage, too. "Wait, I think I've got something."

Ned reached into his own school bag and pulled out some crumpled tissues. The Filipino handed them to him with a second desolate grin and a shrug. Peter knew that a couple of tissues wouldn't clean up much, but he still offered a tiny smile to his best friend. He often wondered how he would have coped with his daily life at school without Ned.

Peter heard faint laughter behind him that he ignored. He had been able to mentally block out other people's taunts for a long time. But he honestly didn't know what to do with his bags. They were spreading that green slimy stuff everywhere.

"Parker," said a voice behind him.

Ned and Peter turned around to see Tyler Grant nodding toward the end of the hallway, where the toilets were located. Tyler was a year older than them. He was the type to be at the top of the popularity ladder.

Peter hesitated and looked at the bags in his hand. Some of the green substance accumulated at the bottom of the bag and crashed to the ground.

It was disgusting.

A few students started giggling again and Peter saw Tyler rolled his eyes. Tyler then pointed to the toilets again, and to Peter's surprise, he walked over to them himself.

Peter and Ned glanced at each other, then grabbed Peter's two soiled bags and followed the older student.

The toilet was empty when Tyler, Ned and Peter went inside. There were three sinks lined up in front of a long mirror and the three students stood in front of one each. Tyler then reached out his arm to Peter's gym bag and said:

"I'll take care of this. Clean the other bag."

"T-thank you" stammered Peter as he gave him his gym bag.

Tyler grabbed the bag with one hand and nodded his head, and the three of them began to work silently, Peter and Ned a little bewildered by the presence of the older teen. It wasn't all the students who were abominably mean to Peter. A few even glared at Peter's bullies and told them to stop bothering him. But there weren't many of them. And rarely as popular as Tyler.

The sticky substance was annoyingly difficult to remove and the three boys had to use an industrial amount of paper to get on with their task. Probably seeing that the work was taking longer than expected, after a while, Tyler took off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his long-sleeved top, revealing his Envèl.

It was rare to see colourful Envèls in high school. Most people discovered their Partner in their early twenties. So many students still had a grey Envèl. But Tyler's was a dark burgundy color with white Aztec patterns on top. The whole school had been talking about him for the past year, as he had found his Partner at barely 16 years old.

"So cool..." Ned whispered.

Tyler glanced at Ned and smiled a little when he saw that Ned was fascinated by his Envèl. Tyler must have been used to having his Envèl scrutinized this way, as he went back to work without saying a word. Ned didn't, however, and he pursed his lips, as if the urge to ask a question made him itch.

Ned's immobility caught Tyler's attention again, and he raised his eyebrows in his direction:

"What?"

"Could you tell us how..." Ned began before turning to Peter. "Uh, Pete, I know you're not-, but-"

"No, it's ok," Peter reassured.

Ned was also a Bonder, but he normally avoided discussing matters concerning his status in society with Peter as much as possible. MJ did the same. Peter was grateful to his two friends, but to be honest, he didn't mind talking about the culture of Bonders, as long as people talked about it without demeaning the Loners in the process.

Ned watched Peter closely, trying to detect any lies or discomfort in his response. He seemed satisfied with what he saw in Peter, for he turned to the older student a moment later, looking excited:

"How was it, meeting your Bond Partner? Adults are always awfully vague about that. I have a bad feeling."

Tyler laughed faintly: "My family hadn't given me many details either until it happened."

"You knew it was coming?" Peter asked, curious in spite of himself.

"Oh no, it totally took me by surprise," Tyler said. "In fact, I wasn't looking forward to meeting my Partner and finding out our type of Bond. My brother's friend, who is completely straight, ended up with a Love Bond with another boy, also completely straight."

"Ah…" said Ned, reflecting the thoughts of his best friend.

Peter had heard that Love Bonds were the most... volatile. An intelligent Bonder could expect to have a Knowledge Bond. A Bonder who loved extreme sports or aspired to use his body in his future career could expect a Strength Bond. A social and friendly Bonder could expect to have a Fraternity Bond with a relative. But Love Bonds were a little more unpredictable.

"In these cases, it's your Bond that decides, so no one can say anything," Tyler continued. "Micah, on the other hand, is in his third year of university, and thank God I share a Platonic Bond with him."

"You just knew it was him" asked Ned. "Seeing him?"

"Uh, no, not exactly. Meeting your Bond Partner is more unpleasant than everyone wants to admit, to be honest." said Tyler.

"I was told your Bond Mark reacts."

"'React' is a nice description; your Bond Mark burns you. But when I say it burns you, it burns you. I wasn't expecting the pain at all, so I screamed. Man, that was embarrassing."

"In front of your Partner?"

"In front of everyone, seriously. I felt like my brain had short-circuited and it hurt too much to worry about my surroundings at the time. So, yeah... it wasn't a pleasant experience at all."

Ned blew a "Wow..." and Peter smiled faintly. What Tyler was describing was an experience he would never have to go through. Peter had gotten used to the idea for years, so hearing this kind of talk didn't make him as envious as it once did. The young hero, however, liked to imagine that he could have been Ned's Partner if he had been a Bonder. They could have shared a Knowledge or Fraternity Bond, probably.

But often, Peter would look at their relationship and think that they really didn't need an Envèl between them to be best friends.

"You sealed yourself in pretty quickly," Peter remarked.

"They say that when you meet your Partner and take time to seal yourself in, your body takes a hit," Ned told his friend.

"Rather, when you meet your Partner, a connection is made, but your Bond becomes unstable," Tyler added for Peter. "To prevent your body or mind from suffering the consequences, you have to be close to your Partner. But no one can or wants to be with their Partner 24 hours a day. I go to high school and Micah goes to college. He also wants to go to a cottage with his girlfriend in Long Island this weekend and I _really_ don't want to tag along."

"It gives you more freedom," Peter understood. "I always thought it was the other way around."

"Yes and no. For distance, it's better, that's for sure. But once you're sealed, your Partner's presence becomes more pronounced."

Tyler lowered his eyes to the Envèl around his left wrist in an absent look:

"It's kind of scary, you know, getting sealed. A wind of depression can grab you out of nowhere while you were laughing with your friends a second ago, or you can feel a sudden sense of euphoria in the middle of a boring math class. Then you know it's not your emotions, it's your Partner's and it's just..."

"...overwhelming? " suggested Peter.

Tyler's shoulders sagged slightly and he sighed. He then opened Peter's bag and wince at the greenish contents inside.

"Yeah, overwhelming," Tyler confirmed before grabbing Peter's trading cards from the bottom of the bag. "Okay, I'm throwing these in the trash."

"NO!" both Peter and Ned cried out in horror.

"They're unrecoverable," said Tyler with a frown.

Peter quickly grabbed the cards from Tyler's hands, afraid that he might actually throw them away while everyone else's back was turned. Peter would have a heart attack.

"Cards of this level are worth a lot of money, even in this condition! You can't just throw them away!" said Peter, outraged at the prospect.

"Why bring them to school if you care so much, seriously," Tyler thwarted by looking at the two younger ones weirdly. "Now they're all dirty."

"Normally, people vandalize my locker or my desk," Peter grumbled as he carefully wiped the green substance from the cards. "I didn't know they were gonna go after my bags this time."

A heavy silence followed. Tyler lowered his gaze and proceeded to continue washing Peter's bag by turning on the tap in front of him. Ned hesitated and got back to the task as well.

Peter hadn't wanted to cool the atmosphere like that at all, so he opened his mouth to change the subject, but Tyler interrupted him:

"Micah's brother is a Loner too."

Peter didn't answer, his eyes fixed on Tyler, realizing that the older student was confessing the reason for his help.

"Being born a Loner in a family of Bonders is pretty tough, nobody's very _proud_ of it," Tyler continued. "Except for Micah, his family and society have never treated Ethan well. Both brothers went to the same privileged schools, and Ethan spent years being bullied like you, Parker."

Tyler turned off the sink faucet and returned the gym bag acceptably clean to Peter. Peter took his bag back, still staring silently at the older student.

"Ethan was kidnapped last month," Tyler said.

Ned let out an exclamation of surprise, and Peter widened his eyes as he squeezed his wet bags a little more tightly against him.

Thousands of Loners disappeared into the wild each year in the United States. The police, 94% of whom were Bonders, had never made a great effort to find them.

And Peter knew why the Loners were kidnapped this way. He really didn't want to think about it.

"He and Micah were on their way home from a club when they were attacked in an alley. The kidnappers took Ethan because he didn't have an Envèl and left Micah because he did. We haven't found Ethan yet."

Tyler's gaze became more distant, but his pupils wiggled slightly in the void, as if he was recalling some awful memories:

"I was always uncomfortable with Ethan, and now I realize it was only because he was a Loner. When someone refused to serve him because he didn't have an Envèl on his arm, it was always Micah who stood up for him, not me. When Ethan was forced to wait in a different section for the Loners, it was always Micah who got angry, not me. Or when someone called him a Soulless on the street for no reason at all, it was always Micah who threw the punch, not me. I'd just stand back and say nothing. I was even embarrassed by the attention we were getting. And now Ethan's been kidnapped, and I never _said_ anything when he was being mistreated before."

Peter suddenly felt really sorry for Tyler. Tyler's family and friends were all Bonders, Peter knew that. So Tyler probably couldn't talk about what was eating him up about Ethan to those around him. Those closest to him probably wouldn't understand why he felt so badly about the way he had treated a Loner. Other than Micah. Micah would understand. But Micah may not yet have had the heart to talk about his missing brother.

"I'm sorry," Ned whispered.

"Me too," Peter added.

Tyler shook his head. He blinked once, and his gaze seemed to return to the present.

"Yeah, well, you're not the only ones," he said. "That's why, now, sometimes with the Loners... sometimes maybe I can say something."

Peter understood. Tyler had seen him being made fun of this morning and the scene had reminded him of Ethan. The older student didn't want to repeat his old behavior with the Loners. He had courage. It wasn't easy to stand up, alone, and go against the flow of a crowd.

"You did more than say something," Peter said. "You helped me clean my bags covered of green snot."

"It was disgusting, " said Tyler.

"Thank you, Tyler."

Tyler made a faint smile devoid of warmth, and before any of the three could add anything, the high-pitched voice of the school secretary echoed through the loudspeakers in the hallways outside:

_"Peter Parker, please report to the principal's office. Peter Parker, report to the principal's office."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Types of Bonds (and frequency in %)
> 
> Love Bond - 48% - sexual  
> Fraternity Bond - 31% - platonic  
> Strength Bond - 9% - platonic  
> Knowledge Bond - 12% - platonic
> 
> 2) I know it's a surprise, even I could hardly imagine Steve and Bucky not being Partners. But for my story, I couldn't put them together, sorry :(


	5. Chapter 5

**_Several months earlier_ **

_._

Parker Robbins looked at his surroundings with disdain as he walked down the dark basement stairs of the dilapidated building. Between the mould, graffiti, and neon lights flashing irregularly above his head, Robbins would have thought he was in a horror movie, preparing to be attacked by a monster hidden in the dark. There was absolutely nothing reassuring about this place.

Robbins reached the lower floor and took a corridor on his right. At the end of the corridor, he found a second set of stairs in poor condition which he began to descend to sink into the fine depths of the building. The light became scarcer. The man with salt and pepper hair wondered if this meeting had been a good idea after all.

When he reached the desired floor, he still had to walk several more corridors to get to his destination, and when he was close by, he finally heard some noise. The faint sound of muffled music reached Robbins' ears. A little more reassured, the man approached.

He stopped in front of a large door made of rusty metal and knocked three times against it.

There was an old-fashioned peephole right in the middle of the door he'd banged on. The small square opening opened abruptly, and brown eyes appeared and landed on the businessman. The guard, probably.

The man behind the door simply moved his head towards Robbins. The latter understood the message and took an ID out of his wallet.

"Parker Robbins," he introduced himself by showing his driver's license. "I have an appointment with Nels Van Adder."

The guard closed the peephole, and a moment later, the door opened with an unpleasant squeaking sound. Robbins put his wallet in his pocket and went inside.

And he felt like he was entering another world.

It was hot. That was the first thing Robbins noticed.

The room was surprisingly big. Much bigger than he'd expected. A large bar with a series of chairs was set up on the right side of the premises. A multitude of tables, armchairs and benches were spread out on a brownish velvet carpet in the rest of the room. The walls were a soothing wine red, the light was dimmed to the maximum, and sensual music was softly coming out of the loudspeakers.

Robbins soon realized why it was so hot. And he pursed his lips tightly, displeased, as he watched the activities going on around him.

Women, and even a few men, were handing out drinks between the tables in outfits far too bare to be decent. Others were glued to customers on the benches in positions that were far from professional. Their thin accoutrements were all the same colour, so they were obviously employees. Robbins didn't know if they were supposed to be waiters or prostitutes.

There were also several doors that seemed to open onto small rooms, and Robbins saw a client and an employee disappear behind one of them. It didn't take much imagination to guess what was going on inside. The place looked like a strange mix of brothel and lounge. Robbins couldn't believe that Van Adder really had the nerve to meet him in a place like that.

The guard, a tall man with an unwelcoming look on his face, took him to a corner near the bar, and Robbins finally saw the man he had come for.

Van Adder was sitting comfortably on a bench, a glass of red wine in hand, chatting with two other men. He was wearing black trousers and a silver satin bathrobe on a bare chest. Several half-naked employees were surrounding the three men. Van Adder had at least two girls hanging on to him.

The blond owner noticed Robbins' disgruntled face standing next to them and gave him a big smile as he spread his arms:

"Robbins, my old friend! There you are!"

Eyes rose on Robbins, who answered with a short, stiff nod. He didn't like to be scrutinized like that. One could recognize him. It would be very bad for him if the media knew he'd been to a place like this.

Van Adder stood up and kindly asked the girls around him to "push their beautiful bodies", and he made his way to his guest.

Van Adder thanked the tall guard with a pat on the shoulder and dragged Robbins into a remote corner of his lounge. The scientist pointed to a small round table surrounded by two armchairs, inviting the other man to sit down.

"I'll be back in two minutes," said Van Adder before walking to one of the doors at the back of the room.

Robbins let out a slight irritated sigh and loosened his tie a little. He was already hot. With such a temperature, no wonder half the people here had the reflex to undress.

He looked around him, observing this world of debauchery that was unknown to him. He had been sharing a Love Bond with his wife since the age of 14, so visiting a place like this had never crossed his mind. But even without his Love Bond, he would never have set foot in such a place on his own. He had principles.

Some employees kept a reasonable distance from their clients when talking to them, but others were straddling their clients or kissing them on the mouth. Hidden in the shadows further to the right of Robbins, a man sat on a bench, eyes closed, his head tilted back. One of the employees was kneeling in front of him with her head between his legs. Seeing the woman's rather explicit head movements, Robbins looked away and cursed Van Adder once again.

At least Van Adder didn't keep him waiting long. The scientist returned a few minutes later with a large metal briefcase in his hands. Van Adder placed the case on the table between them and sat down in front of his guest.

"Is this a joke to you? Meeting me in your brothel," Robbins asked, giving the man a dark glare.

"Brothel?" Van Adder repeated with a false air of outrage. "Are we in 1830? I prefer the term 'Lounge of pleasure.' Would you like a drink?"

"No."

Van Adder nodded with a mocking smile and turned on his seat. He motioned to one of his employees holding a tray of liquor near the bar. The young boy approached and offered a glass of amber liquid to his boss, who took it and thanked him.

Robbins watched the waiter head back to the bar. He was young, no better dressed than his female colleagues. He had strange red marks around his neck and around his right wrist, and Robbins didn't even want to imagine what could have caused such injuries. The businessman hoped the boy was at least 18 years old. The possibility that he might be younger than that made him feel slightly sick.

Van Adder surprised his guest observing his employee and raised an eyebrow.

"You like him?" asked the scientist before turning to the waiter who was walking away. "Freddy, honey, come here!"

"I have a Love Bond," Robbins said dryly to Van Adder.

"Oh."

Van Adder shook his head at the waiter coming back to them and motioned him to leave. The waiter nodded and went to look after other customers. Robbins' nerves calmed down. Even though he had not been sealed with his wife, groping young people 25 years younger than him was not his style. Van Adder had better give him what he wanted quickly so he could get out of here.

"I've always thought you had a Fraternity Bond," Van Adder said to Robbins. "I didn't know you were one of the... unfortunates."

The 'unfortunates' for Nels Van Adder were the Bonders who had the misfortune of having a Love Bond and were forced to sleep with the same woman or man for the rest of their lives. Van Adder loved sex too much for his own good. This was surely the reason why the Nature had given him another kind of Bond.

Van Adder was sharing a Knowledge Bond with a girl he had met at Oscorp, the industry for which the scientist was currently working. Both were biological researchers. Sheryl, his Bond Partner, was a sweet woman who always had a smile on her face and an easy laugh. It surprised Robbins a little that she would let her Partner have this kind of underground business.

"Anyway, that's not why I came," said Robbins.

"You came to talk politics, as usual," Van Adder replied. "You're too serious."

Robbins glanced around to make sure no one else was listening. But everyone was too busy snogging to pay attention to them. So the businessman leaned over the table to get closer to the scientist and said:

"You know it's important, this time. Whitney Frost absolutely must win this election. Can you help me or not?"

"Of course, my friend," Van Adder confirmed, nodding his head.

"How?"

Van Adder took a sip of his drink and put the glass on the table. He too glanced over his shoulder to make sure that no prying ears were near them. When he saw that this was not the case, he began his explanations:

"Normally, presidential candidates don't talk a lot about the fate of the Loners during their campaign. But with Whitney Frost, or the _Countess_ , as you like to call her, it's the opposite."

"She wants to restrict their rights, and rightly so," Robbins nodded. "You know that's the main theme of her campaign."

Unlike Van Adder or Robbins, the public did not yet know how much she wanted to restrict the rights of the Loners, but she would soon share her bill in detail. She was taking it easy, for now.

"Indeed," said Van Adder. "Crawford said he was against Whitney Frost's idea, but he focuses his own discourse on Health. Matthews makes no comment on that and talks about improving the education system. Logically -in neutral and unbiased terms, of course- those who have a problem with the health care system will vote for Crawford. Those who have a problem with the education system will vote for Matthews. And those who have a problem with the Loners will vote for the 'Countess'."

Robbins waited to see what the scientist was getting at. A large part of the Bonders population didn't carry the Loners in their hearts, but there was no guarantee that it was the majority. Moreover, some of the Bonders might have a grudge against the Loners, but find education more important. Their votes would therefore not necessarily go to the Countess.

Van Adder gave him a mysterious smile, seeming to guess the silent logic of the businessman.

"So for the Countess to win, it's simple…" said the scientist.

He pushed the grey briefcase to him and turned it over to have the opening in front of him:

"...we just have to make sure that everyone has a problem against the Loners."

There was an electronic lock on the front of the briefcase. Van Adder made an 8-digit security code and the metal box unlocked with a single 'click'. Robbins expected the scientist to bring out a top secret or valuable object, but to his surprise, when Van Adder opened the briefcase wide, he handed him a simple large photograph.

Robbins took it quietly. The image represented a glossy white table in a laboratory. On the table, between various equipment and blood samples, several cell culture flask, or agar plates containing a green fluorescent substance were lined up.

"I'm presenting you with what's going to save you," said Van Adder.

"What is it?" Robbins asked.

"A virus."

Robbins raised his eyebrows, prompting the scientist to explain. Van Adder's smile widened, seeming delighted to have surprised the normally stoic businessman.

"Well, to be honest, it's more the result of a few experiments that went wrong," Van Adder explained. "Sometimes 'miraculous' discoveries go through processes that are a little more complicated than what we want to show the public. Nine years ago, Oscorp was looking for a formula that would accelerate the regeneration of organic tissue. The company had developed a secret laboratory on one of the uninhabited Kèll Islands, and let's just say that the experiments that were being done there were not exactly..."

"Legal," Robbins guessed easily.

"...Hm, well, they didn't meet certain environmental pollution standards and some human rights, if you will."

"You were using humans as guinea pigs?"

"Yes, but only Loners, don't worry. Anyway, you've probably guessed it, I was one of the scientists sent over there, and after two years, we wanted to experiment with other...horizons."

"And you created a virus."

"Not on _purpose_ , obviously. Believe me, if we'd known what it was going to do to us, we never would have done our new little experimentations..."

Robbins immediately understood what Van Adder was implying and looked down at the picture between them:

"You've been infected."

"Claire Bones and Richard Kent started having strange symptoms a few weeks after our experiments. They were simply told to rest in their rooms. God, if only we'd known what it would lead to. Just a few days later and both of them were covered in green patches."

Van Adder leaned a little towards the businessman and added in a tone of confidence, "Including two Loners that we used as a test and who were subsequently infected, there were four of them who got the Green Disease, Robbins. Three weeks later, 53 of us were bedridden and unable to move. It's contagious, to say the least. This virus can create an epidemic in no time.

"And you want to infect the Loners."

"Bingo."

Van Adder closed the briefcase and took a sip from his glass on the table. He crossed his legs and raised his glass to the businessman, seemingly silently asking him what he thought. Robbins didn't know.

He really didn't know.

"Deaths? " asked Robbins instead.

"Of the 53 I just told you about, five passed."

A little less than one out of ten Loners would die of the disease, if Robbins and the Countess decided to go along with Van Adder's plan. Applied to thousands or millions of people, this rate could cause a lot of deaths.

"The virus may not have killed most of us, but it's incredibly resilient," said Van Adder. "We spent months being sick as dogs. The stupid disease wouldn't go away."

"So you have a cure," said Robbins.

"It took us over 7 months to concoct, but yes, we finally managed to find a cure. And we were very lucky. It's thanks to the resources of the Kèll Islands that we were able to get through it. You don't find these kinds of plants and minerals anywhere else in the world. If we had concocted this little virus on another island, we'd have all been 6 feet under. "

Robbins did not answer immediately.

He had expected all sorts of things when he came to consult Van Adder in the depths of his brothel. He had thought that the scientist would propose to him to lie publicly about the Loners or to create a propaganda that would turn the population against those without a Bond, perhaps.

But to suggest that he contaminate the Loners and kill a tenth of them, he had to think about it.

"The disease will have to take root in the districts of underprivileged Loners, who will be unlikely to be in contact with Bonders, preferably. The disease needs to be isolated at first," said Van Adder.

Robbins straightened up on his seat and crossed his legs, looking carefully at the blond man in front of him.

"Keep going," he said.

"If the disease is widespread across the country, many states will begin to have neighborhoods of sick Loners," Van Adder continued.

"People will associate the disease with the Loners," Robbins understood.

"Exactly. It just needs to look like the epidemic is _coming from_ the Loners. That's the most important thing. But like it or not, the underprivileged Loners will eventually infect the middle-class Loners. The middle-class Loners will infect the privileged Loners who regularly mingle with the Bonders. And when the first Bonder gets sick, who will be blamed?"

Robbins looked at the closed briefcase between them intensely.

"The Loners," he replied.

"When the first Bonder dies, who will be blamed?"

"The Loners."

"And when the election campaign arrives during this tragedy, what will be the problem for most of the Bonders who will vote?"

_The Loners._

Robbins said nothing for a while, trying to evaluate the plausibility of the plan's success. Would the Bonders really start hating the Loners simultaneously because of a simple illness?

The businessman squinted his eyes, looking pensive.

If he had had a limited tolerance for redheads, for example, and suddenly learned that these same redheads were now likely to give him leprosy in no time, would he start to despise them even more?

Probably.

Since his hidden intolerance would then be justified. He would have 'seen it coming', right? That would only give him a good reason to express his dislike freely. It was going to be the same thing with the Loners.

Robbins was beginning to see where Van Adder was headed. This plan could be effective, even if truly cruel. Cruel and awfully risky, however.

"Alright, you've got a point with that idea," conceded Robbins. "But the way I see it, this epidemic will quickly get out of control."

"Well… maybe some time after the election, one of us will mysteriously appear with a miracle cure in our pocket." Van Adder said.

Van Adder winked at him. Robbins didn't answer him.

In other words, all they would need would be the panic and hatred that this disease would engender. But once their goal achieved, Van Adder and his men would rise up to control the epidemic. The goal was not to bury part of the population, but to elect the Countess. It sounded so simple when you put it that way.

"Oscorp and your colleagues will see that the Loners have exactly the same symptoms as this time, on your famous island. " Robbins remarked.

"Who do you think I asked permission to present this research to you?"

So Oscorp was in on it. Now that Robbins was thinking about it, it wasn't so surprising. With the illegal business Oscorp had in his basement, the Countess's election would greatly benefit the company.

"What about your colleagues? " asked Robbins.

"They'll stay quiet, it's prison for all of us if people find out what happened on that island."

"Someone could have a good conscience and denounce your old projects when they see the epidemic become so big."

"Maybe, but I don't think so. To be honest, all the souls that were on that island had a pretty strong aversion to the Loners. More likely, if this disease affects my colleagues directly, they will simply be the first to rise up with this "miracle" cure. We'll just have to watch our timing. Oscorp is taking action on the Kèll Islands. If the authorities get their hands on the antidote too soon, before Oscorp has managed to destroy all the evidence on the island, the disease could be traced back to us. But _if_ we play our cards right, this disease and the election of Whitney Frost will benefit us all. With the program she wants to set up, we won't even have to justify the deaths of all those Loners on the Kèll Islands."

"Okay, but _before that_ , how do you plan to carry out your plan? If you "isolate" Loners in specific locations, it will be easy to make connections for the authorities, and the disease will be traced back to us."

"Yes, well, I admit that's what's going to be the most complicated. Especially if you want to spread the disease to several States at once. I do have a few ideas, though."

Robbins sighed quietly.

Without even realizing it, he was already embarking on Van Adder's plan.

So that's the way it was. He was going to infect and kill Loners for this year's election.

He wondered when life would return the favour.

"Don't bother, I have someone for you," offered the businessman to Van Adder.

The latter raised an eyebrow, obviously not expecting the older man to offer him any help in this whole charade.

"Who's that?"

"Karl Mordo."

This time, Van Adder burst out laughing out loud. Some customers even turned to the two men. The scientist ignored them.

"This sorcerer and all his mystic bullshit?" Van Adder croaked as he caught his breath. "He's a Loner himself!"

"He'll accept," Robbins said confidently.

"He'll agree to spread a disease that will kill his own people? He'll agree to work with a guy who's selling his own?"

"Yes."

Mordo wasn't going to be happy. He wasn't going to be happy at all. Good heavens, he was going to be furious. But he was going to go along with the plan all the same.

Robbins frowned when he noticed a detail Van Adder had just raised, "If you're a merchant of Sequestered, this epidemic will harm you. Same goes for Oscorp."

The scientist shook his head, "Not really. The Loners trade is starting to become too popular, unfortunately. The competition is fierce and each Sequestered is worth less. So, what happens when everyone has sick Sequestered except the organization I work for? Prices will skyrocket. We do have the cure, after all. And, you know that I personally specialize in the love trade."

In the sex trade. Van Adder loved to put salve on all his words.

"A sick Sequestered working in a factory is unfortunate, but manageable," said the scientist. "My business? Who'd want to fuck a sick Loner? Do you really think I'd have a third of my clientele tonight if all my employees had malaria? It's gonna be fatal to the competition in this business."

This statement surprised Robbins.

"Are they Loners?" he asked, looking around him.

Van Adder's half-naked employees were all equipped with black forearm bracers, so Robbins had taken it for granted that they were Bonders. Recreating fake Envèls was illegal and could land you in jail. But now that the businessman was paying attention, it was true that the forearm bracers were longer and did not have all the attributes of a real Envèl.

"This is the main attraction of my Lounge of Pleasure!" Van Adder answered proudly. "Customers don't know whether they're going to fuck Loners or Bonders. It turns them on."

This meant that a good number of Van Adder's slaves were among the employees. Robbins preferred not to think about it too long.

"So, are you in? "asked the scientist, reaching out his right hand to him.

Robbins watched the hand brandished over the table between them without letting any emotion show on his face.

Honestly, the businessman didn't know if everything was going to go well with Van Adder's plan. Deep down, he doubted it sincerely. But he had always been willing to go to jail as long as he fulfilled his mission and Whitney Frost was elected.

"Where do we start?" Robbins said, tightening the scientist's hand.

* * *

.

**_September 19, 2016_ **

.

"Ah, Peter, please sit down," said Mr. Morita when Peter came into his office.

Peter approached without a word. He sat in one of the chairs in front of the principal's desk and waited for the man to speak. The principal was calling him into his office a little too often these days, trying to find out the names of his bullies. Peter couldn't really answer "at least a third of the school," so their little one-on-one sessions never really got anywhere.

The director folded his hands on his desk and plunged his dark pupils into Peter's.

"How's it going, Peter? " began Mr. Morita. "I know these past few weeks must have been very trying for you. I promise, we're doing all we can to find the people who are causing you troubles."

"Hm, thank you, I'm fine."

The director nodded slowly and stared at his hands for a moment. There was a silence that Peter didn't understand. The Asian man seemed to be thinking about how to approach a subject. He didn't leave the young man in the dark for long, however:

"You're probably aware of the disease that's been affecting the Loners for some time now, right?"

Unsure, Peter nodded. He hadn't expected the director to tell him about this. Mr Morita still seemed horribly uncomfortable.

"We've received some... complaints," the director began.

The atmosphere suddenly became heavy, Peter's shoulders tensed.

"Complaints about us letting Loners who may be carrying the disease come to school," continued Mr. Morita. "Some parents are talking about lawsuits or want to shut us down. They argue that the safety of the school is being compromised. It's ... it's clear that we are in a delicate situation and certain measures need to be taken."

Peter's surroundings faded, as the sun's rays coming through the window seemed to darken the office. Peter could barely swallow his spit when he realized what the director was trying to say.

"You... you're expelling me? " He said.

"No, Peter," said the director hastily. " Don't take it as a permanent expulsion."

Mr. Morita, however, seemed uncomfortable when he continued: "Think of it as a temporary suspension until the outbreak is under control."

"But I'm not sick."

"We know, the possibility remains-"

"You can't suspend me because I'm likely to get sick, just on the basis that I'm a Loner."

It was like firing an employee because he _might_ make mistakes in his future files. It was like putting a rebellious-looking kid in jail because he was _probably_ going to commit crimes later. It wasn't fair.

"These are indeed preventive measures, to avoid unfortunate consequences later on," replied the director. "But we can't wait until you're sick before taking action. It may be too late by then and other students will be infected. The government is even thinking of taking drastic measures and putting everyone in confinement. We don't want it to come to that, do you understand?"

Put like this, okay, Peter understood.

Really.

It made sense. Part of him knew it made perfect sense, but another part of him, a more bitter part of him, thought that in the end...

"These are preventive measures to protect the _Bonders_ ," he said.

"Staying in confinement will protect you too," Morita replied.

"But I-"

"Peter, the Ministry and the State are urging all Bonder schools to... limit contact with their Loner students, to limit the spread of the Green Fever. That's why parents would have reason to sue the school. I'm sorry."

Peter suddenly fell silent.

What could he say to that? He was wondering who he must be mad at now.

"I'll contact your aunt as soon as I can today" said Mr. Morita. "If she wants to talk to me in person, she will be free to make an appointment with me during the week. Listen, Peter, you are a good student and we don't want you to be penalized because of this unfortunate situation. So, you'll be allowed to take some classes online and hand in your homework by email. If the epidemic persists for too long, you will also be able to do projects or- "

The director's voice gradually faded and Peter relegated it to the background.

_Staying in confinement will protect you too._

Peter didn't know why this sentence seemed to imply much more than the Green Fever.

Seeing Peter somewhere else, Mr. Morita asked him if he was all right. Peter did not answer and the principal at least had the decency not to ask the question again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> N/A  
> I don't like Whitney Frost's version in "Agent Carter". My Whitney Frost will be completely different, based on Madame Masque Earth-616.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to my Beta QueenDiannaAgron :)

.

**October 01, 2016**

**_._ **

Clint didn't know exactly when the society had started to use the term "Sequestered".

Even as a child, he didn't remember that Loners forced into the submission of others had ever been considered slaves.

There was too much heaviness in the word "slave". It brought back to a dark time when men had little morality. Treating Blacks as properties simply because of the color of their skin or their origin made no sense. Slavery had been abominable for many reasons. No one was very proud of that period.

However, with the Loners, it wasn't exactly the same.

The Loners didn't have a Bond Partner. Their soul was therefore not complete. Somewhere, they were surely all unstable. Physically and mentally. Some of them were even violent.

So, selling Loners to strangers was not really the same situation as _real_ slaves. They were thus called "Sequestered" instead. Deprived of their rights, even though, to be honest, the Bonders who bought those Sequestered probably helped them to be more human.

That was how many Americans thought anyway.

Clint was unsure how a large part of the American population had come to such conclusions.

Laura was a Loner and she was very far from instable.

He had met his wife in a small café in Vermont many years ago. She was sitting alone at a small table with a book in her hand, and what she was reading seemed to amuse her because she was smiling. Her smile had been dazzling. Clint had been immediately charmed.

He had approached her, turning on his seductive mode. However, when Laura had seen him coming towards her, she didn't seem so enthusiastic.

She'd still responded politely when Clint greeted her. She had rolled up the sleeves of her shirt up to her elbows and gently laid her left arm on the table in front of her, in full view of everyone. She had then firmly anchored her dark pupils into Clint's, challenging him to continue flirting with her.

Her left arm was completely naked. She had no bracer to hide any Bond Mark. She was a Loner.

Clint had immediately recognized this look. The beautiful brunette must have been used to being rejected by people because of her status. Other Bonders had probably already tried to seduce her and had quickly changed their minds when they noticed the absence of Envèl on the woman's arm.

Clint had understood. He had been in the same situation on many occasions as well. How many times had girls approached him to flirt with him before their smiles wore off when they saw his hearing aid. Not every woman wanted to date a man who was half deaf. Or learn sign language. Too much work.

So yes, Clint had understood Laura's look. With his life experience, he would be one of the last to judge someone for something they couldn't control. The pretty brunette had nothing to worry about. And Clint had been charmed by her smile and not her Envèl. Or her lack of Envèl. Whatever.

Under Laura's surprised expression, Clint had pulled the free chair from the small table and sat down in front of her with confidence. He had then taken care never to mention Laura's status throughout his little flirting session.

Today, he had three children with her. Cooper and Lila were Bonders. His youngest, Nathaniel, was a Loner.

And imagining his little Nate in the place of one of the Sequestered who were in front of Clint at this very moment was turning his stomach.

He was in one of the safe houses of a group that was illegally selling nuclear weapons throughout the United States and Mexico. It was the second time the Avengers were trying to get their hands on them, to no avail.

By the time they'd entered the arms dealers' premises in northern Massachusetts, the dealers had already fled. They had brought most of their equipment and documents with them. They had left almost nothing behind.

Except for some debris.

And the corpses of three Loners.

The archer was crouched down in front of them. He had found them in an office in the basement of the dilapidated building.

They were two boys and a girl. They were young. Neither was over twenty.

And Nathaniel, Nathaniel his son, could have been among them. Could one day be among them.

"Aha, bingo," said a female voice in the room.

Clint turned his eyes away from the three dead young Loners and laid his pupils on his teammate behind him.

Natasha, with her red hair pulled up into a ponytail and her tight uniform, unlocked something inside a wooden desk drawer in the middle of the room. A second bottom. In their haste, the arms dealers seemed to have forgotten some important things.

The spy smiled as she took out 2 thick folders. They had just caught a big fish.

If it could help them capture these guys faster, that was good. Clint wanted to put them in jail for something completely different than their nuclear weapons now.

It often happened that bad guys had some Sequestered at their disposal. And when it was time to escape, no one wanted a burden. And nobody wanted to leave behind a burden that could denounce them either. These dealers were not the first to execute their Sequestered whilst changing hiding places. It was horrible.

"They also have activities in central Detroit, according to this document," said Natasha as she flipped through the documents she had on hand. "With a bit of luck, there were several of them emptying this room and they won't realize right away that they left a lot of evidence behind."

"Do you want to leave this afternoon?" asked Clint in a flat voice as he laid his eyes back on the three corpses.

The bodies didn't smell excessively strong. The Loners had thus been killed recently. The dealers could not have been too far away. Although Clint would have wanted to learn this clue in another way.

"Better try now; Steve and Tony have to tell us about the Union's mission soon," Natasha said. "We may have to put this mission on hold later."

Clint didn't answer, his eyes still fixed on the three bodies in front of him.

The Sequestered -no, the Loners, in general- were regularly killed unjustly, so these 3 corpses were far from being the first that Clint met. But these days, he was seeing too many of them.

The archer heard his best friend approaching behind him. She put a hand on his right shoulder and squeezed it lightly.

"Hey," she said so her friend would look at her.

Clint sighed faintly and looked up at Natasha. She gave him a thin, sorry smile.

 _It won't happen to Nathaniel_ , she said in sign language.

He wanted to believe her, but he was not often with his family. How could he know?

Natasha seemed to read his mind as she added aloud, "Tony's installed cameras around your property. And he even left his robot...LTT, or LLT...what stupid acronym Tony gave it again?"

"LLP for _Little Lambs' Protector_." recited Clint. Lord, he had a sudden urge to strangle his teammate. "He even installed an orange metal kitchen apron on the robot. There's a picture of my face right in the middle of the apron. I swear, Nat, it's awful."

"I hope you know he did that just to annoy you."

"Laura didn't believe me."

His Bond Partner smiled softly before her face got more serious, "No Avenger will let a trader of Sequestered or a fanatic of the Countess hurt Nathaniel or Laura. Trust me on that."

He trusted her. He trusted his Bond Partner more than anyone else.

Tony hadn't had to install all these protections around his ranch either. Even during the whole debacle with Barnes and the Sokovia Accord, Tony hadn't removed the protections. Clint didn't even think it had crossed the mind of the genius. Yet Clint had not been really kind to him when their team had split up.

Even though they didn't get along all the time, when it came to his family, Clint completely trusted Tony. The same was true for Steve and several members of the Avengers. But even his superhero friends couldn't control everything.

Clint was about to say this very thought to his partner, but instead he frowned and said:

"The Countess?"

* * *

.

"Whitney Frost, or 'The Countess' as she is best known, is currently the favorite candidate in the presidential race. It's said that her family, on her father's side of the family, was part of the Italian nobility, hence her nickname," Tony explained.

Clint knew who Whitney Frost was. The election was in November, just a few weeks away. Even if following politics wasn't his favorite pastime, Clint would have had to live under a rock not to have known who Frost was since the beginning of the campaigns. But he had to admit that he didn't know that she was self-proclaimed The Countess. And apparently, he was the only one in the team.

The Avengers were seated at the long table in their assembly room, ready to hear their next mission from the Union. Not all of them were there. Bruce was MIA since the Battle of New York, Thor was in Asgard, Wanda and Vision were on a mission in Nepal and would not return before the elections. Only Steve, Tony, Clint, Natasha, Rhodey and Sam were present.

Ross had not wanted to stay to review the case with them, and the heroes had been far from protesting this decision.

The Secretary of State, however, had given them the news that, although the roles in government would change, there was a good chance he would continue to oversee the Avengers. The heroes had not been as pleased by this news.

The photo of a beautiful woman in a suit appeared on the presentation screens in front of the room. The woman must have been in her late thirties, and she was smiling thinly at the camera. Her hair was raven black and her eyes piercing gray. She had the kind of cold beauty that could intimidate many.

"Frost finally shared last night the details of the bill she wants to introduce on the Loners," continued Tony. "She wants to put in place a reform that would allow Bonders to take Loners under tutelage. But all the rights of the Loners would revert to their 'tutors'. So, in this scenario, if the Loners want to go to school or work, for example, it would be up to the Bonders in charge of them to decide."

A cold dread invaded Clint's chest, and his thoughts immediately turned to Laura and Nathaniel. This bill seemed to be an attempt to legally turn all the Loners into Sequestered.

Clint had already heard some of Witney Frost's speeches. She'd made several before. And behind each of her words, it was easy to guess that she considered the Loners as inferior beings. Usually, the election candidates at least pretended to care about everyone, or adopted a neutral attitude towards the Loners. Whitney Frost didn't even bother.

At the announcement of Frost's bill, Sam, who was normally as uninterested in politics as Clint, took his eyes off the projected image of Whitney Frost and put them on Tony, as if he couldn't believe his ears.

"You're serious?" said Sam. "A law like that would _never_ pass."

"That would be true if it had been about the Bonders," Natasha contradicted with a pensive look on her face. "The Loners don't have the same rights in the Constitution. She won't be violating anything."

"But even then, the population will never support that," Sam insisted.

"You'd be surprised," Tony said.

Tony, who, as usual, was sitting to Steve's right, met the captain's gaze and a mutual understanding seemed to pass between them. Clint knew that the two had witnessed things about the Loners that they would have liked to forget. If the Countess was elected, Tony and Steve would not be surprised.

And neither would Clint.

That was part of the reason why Clint's family lived in the middle of nowhere. To shield them from outside hostility.

"According to her, the 'tutelage' period should last a few years – she's not yet specified how many -" Tony continued, "And when the Bonders will find their Loners 'fit enough' to fly on their own, the Loners will be able to return to society with exactly the same privileges as the Bonders. So there will no longer be any restrictions for them regarding universities, job positions normally reserved for Bonders, voting rights, and so on."

"But their Bonders would have to allow it first," said Sam.

"Yes."

"Which will never happen."

Rhodey sighed as he passed a hand to his face, "Frost is sure the Bonders will."

"Or she doesn't care and just wants to make her bill look good," Natasha said as she stood up to lean against a wall further away. "Does it have anything to do with the Union's mission?"

Steve grabbed three files from the table in front of him and slipped them to his colleagues. One of them stopped in front of Rhodey and Clint. Rhodey opened it and took out the papers.

When Clint looked up at the screens, the pictures of the Countess had disappeared. Instead of the face of the election candidate, there were now pictures of huge buildings that were blindingly white from several angles.

"A few months ago, we found out that Oscorp was the author of one of the largest Sequestered networks in the country," Steve explained. "The company's CEO is a good acquaintance of the Countess. The CIA agents have already infiltrated the network. They believe she is involved in this."

Clint lowered his eyes to the sheets of the file that Rhodey had spread between them. There were other pictures. Some of them depicted scientists, equipment or weapons. There were also images of Sequestered Loners in chains. Women, men and children.

A whole bunch of children.

"According to the evidence gathered by the CIA moles, the network started 6 years ago," continued Steve. "And six years ago, Frost was hired as a consultant on a restructuring program. The agents also uncovered several letters of instruction regarding the transport of the Sequestered. No letters were signed, but they were able to trace some of them. Most of them came from places that Frost had frequented during the same period."

"The Union wants us to look for different kinds of evidence?" Rhodey asked with a frown.

The CIA agents seemed to be doing fine without their help. If the operation had been going on for months and the Avengers had never heard of it, it must have been going well.

Sharon was also in the CIA. Clint wondered for a moment if she had told Steve about this operation before.

"No, not exactly," Steve replied to Rhodey's question. "They were about to expose the company and take it to court, when the moles noticed something: all the Sequestered in Oscorp's basements were in great shape. Those who were captured and who were visibly showing symptoms of the Green Fever when they first came to the centre, were back on their feet a few days later".

"They have the antidote," Clint concluded, still staring at a photo on the table in front of him that showed children in chains.

The Green Fever was still spreading across the country at a staggering rate and was claiming thousands of lives every week.

Ross hadn't looked too stressed when he told the Avengers that the Union had a mission for them weeks ago. The Green Fever was not really affecting the Bonders at that time. It did now. And all of a sudden, Ross was telling them this mission should be their first priority.

"The antidote is on the third level of the basement," said Tony. "The problem is that every inch on that floor is subject to a Bond Mark detector. So if a Bonder enters that third level, boom. The whole floor is packed with explosives. A Bond Mark is the trigger."

"Why take so many measures against Bonders?" Sam asked.

"It's one thing to have a network of Sequestered, it's another to have a cure for a national epidemic and not wanted to share it," Tony replied, "The Sequestered network is only about the Loners, while the Green Fever is killing Bonders. This last point will put Oscorp more in shit. And the company knows full well that they could have traitors among their employees or visitors. Normally Loners are not allowed on Oscorp's premises. The only ones allowed there are the Sequestered in chains and they are _easy_ to control."

"While a traitor could take on anyone's face, but they would have to be a Bonder," Clint understood. "But some of their employees could be sick. How do they deal with that?"

"They do nothing at all. 98% of the company's employees don't know what's going on in their basements. If they get sick, it's too bad for them," said Tony.

It made sense. If Oscorp started to heal employees, especially if most of them knew nothing about the Network of Sequestered, it was going to raise questions somewhere.

"Why wouldn't they want to share the antidote in the first place?" Sam asked, reflecting Clint's thoughts.

"I guess that's what the Union wants us to find out?" said Natasha.

She looked at Tony and Steve as she asked the question. Steve nodded before leaning against the back of his chair.

"Our priority will be to find a way to bring back a sample of the antidote." said Steve, "If we can incriminate the Countess or find Oscorp's motives in the process, that would be ideal, but our mission is to come back with the cure first. The bombs on the third level of Oscorp's basement are not connected to any outside network. They were placed on the floor manually by Loners and can only be deactivated by Loners. The only external thing connected to these bombs are detonators distributed to several guards, who have the order to blow up the floor and the evidence that comes with it at the slightest suspicion. All CIA agents are Bonders. Ross wants us to come up with a plan."

Tony straightened up and grabbed two sheets of the file that had been left with him and Steve. It was two photos printed on paper. One showed scientists in white lab coats in a laboratory, the second showed the blurred image of three Sequestered Loners.

Tony first pointed to the paper with the scientists, "It’ll probably be easy to hack their cameras, but as Cap explained, it won't be as simple to defuse the bombs on this floor. So, we have two choices to get our hands on the antidote. _Number 1_ : we capture one of the scientists who are involved in the Network of Sequestered and smack him around until he gives us the formula for the antidote".

"That could work just fine," said Natasha.

"Yeah, well, that's what the CIA thought first too. And it turned out to be harder than expected. The moles managed to get their hands on some of the scientists involved in the case, but it didn't work out. No one seemed to know how to replicate the antidote. Ross and the team also had to, uh, dispose of the scientists."

'Dispose'. Ross probably hadn't killed them, but Clint was not sure he wanted to know what the Secretary of State and his team had done with them.

Okay, so, nothing said the Avengers would have much better luck with this option. Moreover, if they too were going to be forced to "dispose" of all the people connected to the network of Sequestered they were going to interrogate, Oscorp was going to end up wondering why half of those specific people were no longer coming to work.

"They must replenish from time to time from the outside, right?" Rhodey noted. "We could intercept those supplies."

"When you have an entire floor with such limited access, you have space to store a lot of things. That's what Oscorp has done." said Tony. "Apparently, even if Oscorp had to cure 100 Loners per day, the company could go six months without restocking. Which brings us back to our second option, which seems a little simpler."

"We use a real Loner as an ally," said Clint instead of Tony.

Tony nodded.

Using a real Loner as a mole would indeed be the simplest, but most of the agents they knew, SHIELD agents or allies, were Bonders. Whoever was going to take the place of a Sequestered was going to have to undo his chains at some point to _get out_ , and the mission could go wrong. It could be dangerous.

In good conscience, the Avengers could never ask such a mission from a simple Loner, especially if they had no means to defend themselves.

"The CIA knew the most advantageous solution, but the agents didn't yet have a plan to execute it," explained Steve. "However, this week, Oscorp announced that they would be holding an ‘Event’ with Sequestered Loners in mid-October. And the company plans to do some...capturing a few days before the Event. That will be the perfect time to find a Loner and infiltrate them."

Clint had heard all sorts of rumors about these Events. He didn't envy the Loner who would volunteer to take part in this mission.

Once again, Clint thought of Nathaniel. The kidnappings of Loners were normally random. If a Loner was in the wrong place at the wrong time, they could participate in one of these Events. And the merchants always preferred them young.

Kidnappings were illegal, whether they involved Loners or Bonders. However, even if running a network of Sequestered was also technically illegal, _owning_ Sequestered Loners as such was not. If you could get your hands on a Loner born Sequestered, keeping them was not breaking the law. And when a Loner child was reported missing, the police were closing files far too quickly. That was why it was so easy for merchants and their customers to abuse these vague laws and lie about their Sequestered.

"So we have to convince a competent Loner who's not going to completely screw up the mission to work with us," said Clint. "And who'll be able to get out of it if things go sour."

"I know one or two Loners who were with me in the army and who are still around," said Sam.

"I also know a Loner who is skilled in combat and could help," said Natasha. "But he must be in his fifties, not sure if it'll help our mission. What about you, Sam?"

"Well... they're also a little older than me," admitted Sam with a frown. He looked at the pictures of the Oscorp Loners. 75% of them were young people. "I don't know of any other Loner that would be ideal in this situation."

"Neither do I," Rhodey said.

"Same here," said Steve.

Eyes turned to Clint and Tony. Clint shook his head, indicating that he was in the same boat as them.

Tony, however, pursed his lips and scratched his head. He had the same kind of expression before confessing a foolish thing he had done. It very often concerned millions that he had wasted on a whim or a scandal about him that would break out the next day in the media.

"Hm...maybe I do..." Tony ended up saying.

Steve frowned slightly as he stared at Tony, as if he wondered why the billionaire hadn't told him earlier. Tony shrugged at the Captain, then offered a mysterious smile to the others before saying:

"He lives in Queens."

**Author's Note:**

> A/N
> 
> 1-I'm team "I love Steve and Tony", so there will be no bashing, all right? (But Steve and Tony do have issues they'll have to work out)
> 
> 2- I'm French Canadiaaan, and English is not my first language. If you see weird expressions/words in my story, well….now you know why…
> 
> 3- Big thanks to my betas T. Rycbar and QueenDiannaAgron, for helping me with this story!


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